It was replaced by the present edifice in 1846.

President Washington, who was an Episcopalian, did not attend Trinity, but maintained a pew in St.
Paul's Chapel, Broadway and Vesey Street, which remains as it was when he worshipped there._] By the friends of the original bill, the amendment was opposed with arguments of great force drawn from the constitution and from general convenience.

On several parts of the constitution, and especially on that which vests the executive power in the President, they relied confidently to support the position, that, in conformity with that instrument, the power in question could reside only with the chief magistrate: no power, it was said, could be more completely executive in its nature than that of removal from office.
But if it was a case on which the constitution was silent, the clearest principles of political expediency required that neither branch of the legislature should participate in it.
The danger that a President could ever be found who would remove good men from office, was treated as imaginary.

It was not by the splendour attached to the character of the present chief magistrate alone that this opinion was to be defended.

It was founded on the structure of the office.