<P> Although the President and military officers returned to Washington only a few days after the British left, Congress did not return for three and half weeks . The Thirteenth Congress officially convened on September 19, 1814, at the Blodgett's Hotel, one of the few surviving buildings large enough to hold all members . The Blodgett's Hotel also housed the U.S. Patent Office . Although the British had destroyed all public buildings, the Blodgett's Hotel and U.S. Patent Office was spared . It was in this building that Congress met between September 1814 and December 1815 (when construction of the Old Brick Capitol was complete). </P> <P> There was a movement in Congress to relocate the capital after the burning . Congressmen from the North pushed for relocation to Philadelphia or other prominent Union cities, while Southern congressmen claimed that moving the capital would degrade the American sense of dignity and strength (however many southern congressmen simply did not want to move the capital north of the Mason--Dixon line). On September 21, 1814, the House of Representatives voted to strike down a proposal to relocate the capital from Washington, D.C. by a margin of 83 to 54 . On February 3, 1815, in an effort to guarantee that the federal government would always remain in the area, Washington property owners funded the building of the Old Brick Capitol, a larger meeting space where the Supreme Court now stands . Construction of the Old Brick Capitol cost $25,000 and was funded primarily through the sale of stocks . The largest donor was Daniel Carroll of Duddington, a rich English property owner in the area . Construction began on July 4, 1814, and concluded in December 1815 . Congress met in the Old Brick Capitol between December 1815 and December 1819, when the Capitol reopened . </P> <P> The Capitol reconstruction took much longer than anticipated . The Old Brick Capitol took only five months to complete; the Capitol took twelve years . A committee appointed by Congress to investigate the damage to the District concluded that it was cheaper to rebuild the already existing and damaged buildings than to build an entirely new one . On February 13, 1815, President Madison and Congress passed legislation to borrow $500,000 to repair the public buildings, including the Capitol, "on their present sites in the city of Washington". Benjamin Latrobe, architect of the Capitol who took over for William Thornton in 1803, was rehired to repair the building on April 18, 1815 . He immediately requested 60,000 feet of boards, 500 tons of stone, 1,000 barrels of lime, and brick . With the $500,000 borrowed from Washington banks, Latrobe was able to rebuild the two wings and the central dome before being fired in 1818 for being difficult . Charles Bulfinch took over and officially completed the renovations by 1826 . Bulfinch modified Latrobe's design by increasing the height of the Capitol dome to match the diameter of 86 ft . With the reconstruction of the public buildings in Washington, the value of land in the area increased dramatically, paving the way for the expansion of the city that developed in the years leading up to the American Civil War . </P>

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