In March 1807, the state legislature responded by appointing as a Commission the three men suggested by the Common Council to establish a comprehensive street plan for Manhattan: Gouverneur Morris, a Founding Father of the United States; the lawyer John Rutherfurd, a former United States Senator representing New Jersey and a relative to Morris by marriage; and the state Surveyor General, Simeon De Witt, a cousin of De Witt Clinton, who was the Mayor of New York City, a State Senator, and the most powerful politician in New York.