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THE CAPITOL DOME 20 Most of the debate revolved around future military pre- paredness, the possibility of being captured, and the cost of reinforcing the city rather than the more strategic coastal defenses. Some insisted that abandoning Washington "would gratify the pride and resentment of the English nation more than any other operation their army on the coast could per - form." 3 And where would they run to? Congress knew no more where the British would strike in 1815 than they had known in 1814. Lastly, the city's supporters mocked the argument that it was more disgraceful to run away when attacked than it was to run away even before they were attacked again. "This is indeed a new chapter in chivalry," taunted Pearson—who knew something about chivalry. 4 e genteel North Carolinian had seriously wounded a fellow congressman on the nearby Bladensburg dueling grounds just five years earlier. e two speeches excerpted below from the Annals of Congress summarize the various arguments cited during the debate. e first is by duelist Joseph Pearson (1766-1834); the second, by Fisk's fellow New York lawyer omas P. Grosvenor (1778- 1817). Both speeches were delivered on the first day of the debate, September 26, 1814. For much of the ensuing month, Washington's fate as the ongoing seat of government hung in the balance. Both the Federalist minority and the Jeffersonian Republican majority reacted to the proposed removal along sectional more than party lines. Both Pearson and Grosvenor, for example, were Federalists who had every reason to fight President Madison's Republican Administration, which also openly opposed removal. Fisk, Grosvenor, and the rest had based their proposition on the expediency of a temporary removal, but their opponents saw this as a ruse. And to prove their point, after the bill for removal had passed the Committee of the Whole and perennial contender Philadelphia had been inserted in the blank for the place of removal, Virginia's Joseph Lewis successfully moved a last minute amendment to appropriate $100,000 annually for five years, to prepare Washington for the government's return. Suddenly burdened with this financial commitment to return, the bill failed on its final reading in the full House on October 15. Pearson appears to have been correct when he insisted that "the specious garb which envelopes this proposition hides from the superficial eye much of its real deformity," which was to abandon Washington and never go back. 5 HOUSE DEBATES (September 26, 1814) Mr. PEARSON [. . .] e gentleman [Jonathan Fisk] had said the purposed removal is only temporary; but his arguments look to a permanent removal. Where, if not here, is the gentle- man to get those records, those steering oars to guide him in this difficult road? e public library is destroyed, but there are as good in this District as in any place to which it is now purposed to remove. e gentleman may, if he thinks proper, within the compass of ten miles, obtain all the books he ever read. e gentleman had intimated that Congress might, in a LIBR ARY OF CONGRE S S PRIN T S AND PHOTOGR APHS DIVISION WHI T E HOUSE HIS TORIC AL SOCIE T Y (W. H. COL L EC T ION) Fig. 3. George Munger's companion watercolor showed the damage done to the President's House by British troops. Fig. 2. 1814 ink and watercolor drawing by George Munger documents the damage to the Capitol after it was burnt by the British. Fig. 4. Joseph Fisk, from Edward Manning Ruttenber, History of the Town of Newburgh, p. 307.