“America 250” is a White House–branded initiative to prepare and coordinate a year‑long national commemoration of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence on July 4, 2026—organizing federal, state, local, and private events, educational programs, and celebrations tied to the semiquincentennial.
The Second Continental Congress was the assembly of delegates from the 13 colonies that met in Philadelphia from 1775 to 1781 and effectively served as the national government during the American Revolution. It organized the Continental Army and named George Washington its commander, issued the Declaration of Independence, managed diplomacy and war strategy, and drafted the Articles of Confederation, so it was crucial in both winning independence and creating the first U.S. national government.
Benjamin Franklin was one of the three main American peace commissioners in Paris (with John Adams and John Jay). He refused British feelers that offered only limited autonomy, insisting on full recognition of U.S. independence and on not making a separate peace without France. Using his influence at the French court and his diplomatic skill, he helped negotiate the preliminary articles (1782) and definitive Treaty of Paris (1783), which secured British recognition of U.S. independence, generous western boundaries, and key concessions such as fishing rights and arrangements on debts and Loyalist property.
In Franklin’s time, the Postmaster General ran the postal system: setting routes and schedules, supervising post offices and riders, and managing rates and finances. As Crown joint deputy postmaster general for the colonies (1753–1774), Franklin surveyed more than 1,600 miles of routes, introduced faster relays that carried mail day and night, and created regular service between major cities, sharply cutting delivery times and making the system profitable. After the Continental Congress appointed him the first American Postmaster General in 1775, he helped build an independent postal network that let newspapers, letters, and official orders move reliably among the colonies, which in turn bound them together politically and socially during the push for independence.
Franklin is often called the “First American” because he was an early, tireless advocate of colonial unity and came to personify the emerging American identity. Decades before independence, he argued that the colonies should act together, represented several colonies in London, and later served as a leading diplomat for the new United States in France. His life as a self‑made printer, inventor, civic leader, and revolutionary statesman made him a widely recognized symbol of American character both at home and abroad.
There is good evidence that Franklin edited the famous sentence in the Declaration, but not that he originated the whole phrase “all men are created equal.” Jefferson’s surviving rough draft already contains the equality claim; Franklin is believed to have changed Jefferson’s wording from “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” to “We hold these truths to be self‑evident,” sharpening the philosophical tone. Because we have Jefferson’s draft with interlineations but no detailed record of the line‑by‑line discussion, historians can say Franklin likely suggested the “self‑evident” wording, but not that he first proposed the idea or exact phrase “all men are created equal.”