The provisional Congress held four sessions, as follows: 1. February 4–March 16th, 1861; 2. April 29–May 22d, 1861; 3. July 20–August 22d, 1861; and 4. November 18th, 1861–February 17th, 1862. Under the permanent Constitution there were two Congresses. The first Congress held four sessions, as follows: 1. February 18–April 21st, 1862; 2. August 12–October 13th, 1862; 3. January 12–May 8th 1863; and 4. December 7, 1863–February 18th, 1864. The second Congress held two sessions, as follows: 1. May 2–June 15th, 1864; and 2. From November 7th, 1864, until the hasty and final adjournment, March 18th, 1865. In the first Congress members chosen by rump State conventions, or by regiments in the confederate service, sat for districts in Missouri and Kentucky, though these States had never seceded. There were thus thirteen States in all represented at the close of the first Congress; but, as the area of the Confederacy narrowed before the advance of the Federal armies, the vacancies in the second Congress became significantly more numerous. At its best estate the Confederate Senate numbered 26, and the house 106, as follows: Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 4; Florida, 2; Georgia, 10; Kentucky, 12; Louisiana, 6; Mississippi, 1; Missouri, 7; North Carolina, 10; South Carolina, 6; Tennessee, 11; Texas, 6; Virginia, 16. In both Congresses Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia, was Speaker of the House.[9] For four months between the Presidential election and the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln those favoring secession in the South had practical control of their section, for while President Buchanan hesitated as to his constitutional powers, the more active partisans in his Cabinet were aiding their Southern friends in every practical way. In answer to the visiting Commissioners from South Carolina, Messrs. R. W. Barnwell, J. H. Adams and Jas. L. Orr, who formally submitted that State’s ordinance of secession, and demanded possession of the forts in Charleston harbor, Buchanan said:— “In answer to this communication, I have to say that my position as President of the United States was clearly defined in the message to Congress on the 3d inst. In that I stated that ‘apart from the execution of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change the relations heretofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State. This would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution of the Confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign _de facto_ Government, involving no such responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on his part, be a naked act of usurpation. It is, therefore, my duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all its bearings.’