With Americans of Past and Present Days

by J. J. Jusserand

Criticism of L'Enfant's plan turned out to be insignificant, and the approbation general. "The work of Major L'Enfant, which is greatly admired, will show," Washington said, "that he had many objects to attend to and to combine, not on paper merely, but to make them correspond with the actual circumstances of the ground."[127] Jefferson, who had the good taste not to stick to his own former suggestions, was sending, a little later, copies of the plan to Gouverneur Morris, then minister to France, for him to exhibit in various cities as a thing for the United States to be proud of: "I sent you by the way of London a dozen plans of the city of Washington in the Federal territory, hoping you would have them displayed to public view where they would be most seen by those descriptions of men worthy and likely to be attracted to it. Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and the seaport towns of Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Marseille would be proper places to send them to."[128]

Three assistants had been given to L'Enfant, two of the Ellicot brothers (Andrew and Benjamin) and Isaac Roberdeau, the major's trustiest second. Three Commissioners of the District had been appointed, Thomas Johnson and Daniel Carroll, both of Maryland, and David Stuart, of Virginia. They notified L'Enfant, on the 9th of September, 1791, that a name had been selected for the district and the city: "We have agreed that the federal district shall be called 'the Territory of Columbia,' and the federal city 'the City of Washington.' The title of the map will therefore be 'A map of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia.'"

For the expropriation of the ground with a minimum actual outlay, an ingenious system, also applied elsewhere, had been adopted: "The terms entered into by me," Washington wrote to Jefferson, "on the part of the United States with the landowners of Georgetown and Carrollsburgh, are that all the land from Rock Creek along the river to the Eastern Branch ... is ceded to the public, on condition that, when the whole shall be surveyed and laid off as a city, which Major L'Enfant is now directed to do, the present proprietors shall retain every other lot, and for such parts of the land as may be taken for public use they shall be allowed at the rate of twenty-five pounds per acre, the public having the right to reserve such parts of the wood on the land as may be thought necessary to be preserved for ornament; the landholders to have the use and profit of all the grounds until the city is laid off into lots, which by this agreement became public property. Nothing is to be allowed for the ground which may be occupied as streets or alleys." The President was confident that everybody would acquiesce and show good-will, "even the obstinate Mr. Burns."[129]

But it turned out that there were other obstinate people besides Mr. Burns, L'Enfant himself chief among them. He had evinced from the first a great fear of speculators, and was at once at war with them. "How far," he boldly wrote to Hamilton, "I have contributed to overset that plotting business, it would not do for me to tell; besides, I am not wholly satisfied whether I would be thanked for by the people among whom you live."[130] The three Commissioners had notions of their own, but could never bring L'Enfant to take into account either their persons or their ideas; he would acknowledge no chief except Washington, who, gently at first, firmly afterward, sternly later, and vainly throughout, tried to make the major understand that he was one of the Commissioners' subordinates. A great reciprocal irritation, which even the President's painstaking diplomacy could not assuage, began between them from the first. Out of fear of speculators, L'Enfant wanted the sale of the lots to be delayed, while the Commissioners desired to make a beginning as soon as possible. The officer kept, accordingly, his plan to himself, and refused to have it shown to would-be purchasers. How, then, Washington exclaimed, could they be "induced to buy, to borrow an old adage, a pig in a poke"?[131]

The major would not be persuaded, and, giving an early example of an unconquerable fear of what would now be called a "trust," he persisted in refusing to show his plan to any individual or association. He had declared beforehand, in one of his reports to the President, what were his views and how things should be delayed until the plan could be engraved, distributed all over the country, and made known to all people at the same time: "A sale made previous the general plan of the distribution of the city is made public, and before the circumstance of that sale taking place has had time to be known through the whole continent, will not call a sufficient concurrence, and must be confined to a few individuals speculating ... and the consequence of a low sale in this first instance may prove injurious to the subsequent ones by serving as precedents." He was afraid of the "plotting of a number of certain designing men," of the forming of a "society" organized "to engross the most of the sale and master the whole business."[132]

When one of the chief landowners of the district, Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, a relative of one of the Commissioners, decided, in spite of all warnings, to go on with the building of a house across what was to be New Jersey Avenue, matters came to a crisis. Washington tried to pacify L'Enfant, whose indignation knew no bounds. "As a similar case," he wrote to him, "cannot happen again (Mr. Carroll's house having been begun before the federal district was fixed upon), no precedent will be established by yielding a little in the present instance; and it will always be found sound policy to conciliate the good-will rather than provoke the enmity of any man, where it can be accomplished without much difficulty, inconvenience, or loss."

But even at the request of a leader whom he worshipped, L'Enfant would not be persuaded. With no authority from the Commissioners, he sent his faithful Roberdeau to raze the house to the ground, which was but partly done when the Commissioners had Roberdeau arrested. L'Enfant thereupon came in person with some laborers, and saw the work of destruction perfected (November 22). He barely escaped arrest himself. Washington, who, as he wrote to Jefferson, was loath to lose "his services, which in my opinion would be a serious misfortune," severely remonstrated now with the major. "In future I must strictly enjoin you to touch no man's property without his consent, or the previous order of the Commissioners," adding in kindlier tones: "Having the beauty and regularity of your plan only in view, you pursue it as if every person or thing were obliged to yield to it."[133]

But so they are, thought L'Enfant. For him the city was his city, his child, and a father has a right to rear his child as he pleases. Remonstrating went on some time. Jefferson came to the rescue of the President, used the fairest means, asked the major to dine with him "tête à tête," so as to quietly discuss the federal city, the hour for the meal differing rather widely from ours: "Mr. Jefferson presents his compliments to Major L'Enfant, and is sorry to have been absent when he was so kind as to call on him, as he wishes to have some conversation with him on the subject of the federal city. He asks the favor of him to come and take a private dinner with him to-morrow at half after three, which may afford time and opportunity for the purpose.—Saturday January 7, 1792."[134] Nothing resulted. Another landowner, Notley Young, had been found in December building a house which had, "contrary to expectation, fallen into a principal street. But I hope," Washington wrote the Commissioners, "the major does not mean to proceed to the demolition of this also."

On no point would L'Enfant yield, so that on March 6, 1792, Jefferson wrote to the Commissioners: "It having been found impracticable to employ Major L'Enfant in that degree of subordination which was lawful and proper, he has been notified that his services were at an end."

A consolation and a comfort to him was the immediate signing by all the landowners of the district, except two, of a testimonial "lamenting" his departure, wishing for his return, praising his work, "for we well know that your time and the whole powers of your mind have been for months entirely devoted to the arrangements in the city which reflect so much honor on your taste and judgment."[135]