Join or Die?
Synopsis: In the war against the French in the 1750s, Franklin urged the separate colonies to unite under one organization. The majority of Americans, however, sensed that the colonies differed too much in religion, customs, ideology, and principles to come together. A Congress was held at Albany, NY wherein this debate raged for days. Franklin lost the debate, but it would come up again during the Revolution.
FRANKLIN v. POWNALL
Colonial Union
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
“The Confidence of the French in this Undertaking (the French & Indian War) seems well-grounded on the present disunited State of the British Colonies, and the extreme Difficulty of bringing so many different Governments and Assemblies to agree in any speedy and effectual Measures for our common Defence and Security.”
John 17:21
THOMAS POWNALL
It is essential to the preservation of the empire to keep the colonies disconnected and independent of each other. They are certainly so at present ⎯ the different manner in which they are settled, the different modes under which they live, the different forms of charters, grants, and frame of government they possess, the various principles of repulsion ⎯ that these create the different interests which they actuate, the religious interests by which they are actuated, the rivalship and jealousies which arise from hence, and the impracticability, if not the impossibility of reconciling and accommodating these incompatible ideas and claims, will keep them forever so.
II Corinthians 6:17
WILLIAM CLARKE
This Union is hardly to be expected to be brought about by any confederacy or voluntary Agreement among ourselves. The Jealousies the Colonies have of each other with regard to their real or imaginary different Interests, &c. will effectually hinder anything of this kind from taking place. But were everything else to be got over, we should never agree about the Form of the Union, or who should have the execution of the Articles of it. So that however necessary a Step this may be for the mutual Safety and preservation of these Colonies, it is pretty certain it will never be taken.