Political Background
Ben Franklin became involved in Philadelphia politics and continued throughout his life. He is credited with the following:
He served as a councilman in 1748 and became Justice of the Peace in June 1749. In 1751 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. In August 10, 1753, he was appointed joint deputy postmaster-general of North America. . In 1754, he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress. This meeting of several colonies had been requested by the Board of Trade in England to improve relations with the Indians and defense against the French. Franklin proposed a broad Plan of Union for the colonies. While the plan was not adopted, elements of it found their way into the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
In May 1775 after arriving back from his second mission to Great Britain, he was unanimously chosen as the delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In June 1776, he was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. In December 1776, Franklin was sent to France as commissioner for the United States. Also, he served as American minister to Sweden, although he never visited that country. He negotiated a treaty that was signed in April 1783. In 1787, Franklin served as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. He held an honorary position and seldom engaged in debate. He is the only Founding Father who is a signatory of all four of the major documents of the founding of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, the Treaty of Alliance with France, and the United States Constitution. He was the governor of Pennsylvania. During his later life, he freed his slaves and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.
Sources cited From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin