When Congress began its session of 1853-1854, most of the surveying parties contemplated by the act of the previous March were still in the field. The reports ordered were not yet available, and Congress recognized the inexpediency of proceeding farther without the facts. It is notable, however, that both houses at this time created select committees to consider propositions for a railway. Both of these committees reported bills, but neither received sanction even in the house of its friends. The next session, 1854-1855, saw the great struggle between Douglas and Benton. Stephen A. Douglas, who had triumphantly carried through his Kansas-Nebraska bill in the preceding May, started a railway bill in the Senate in 1855. As finally considered and passed by the Senate, his bill provided for three railroads: a Northern Pacific, from the western border of Wisconsin to Puget Sound; a Southern Pacific, from the western border of Texas to the Pacific; and a Central Pacific, from Missouri or Iowa to San Francisco. They were to be constructed by private parties under contracts to be let jointly by the Secretaries of War and Interior and the Postmaster-general. Ultimately they were to become the property of the United States and the states through which they passed. The House of Representatives, led by Benton in the interests of a central road, declined to pass the Douglas measure. Before its final rejection, it was amended to please Benton and his allies by the restriction to a single trunk line from San Francisco, with eastern branches diverging to Lake Superior, Missouri or Iowa, and Memphis. During the two years following the rejection of the Douglas scheme by the allied malcontents, the select committees on the Pacific railways had few propositions to consider, while Congress paid little attention to the general matter. Absorbing interest in politics, the new Republican party, and the campaign of 1856 were responsible for part of the neglect. The conviction of the dominant Democrats that the nation had no power to perform the task was responsible for more. The transition from a question of selfish localism to one of national policy which should require the whole strength of the nation for its solution was under way. The northern friends of the railway were disheartened by the southern tendencies of the Democratic administration which lasted till 1861. Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, was followed by Floyd, of Virginia, who believed with his predecessor that the southern was the most eligible route. At the same time, Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee, Postmaster-general, was awarding the postal contract for an overland mail to Butterfield's southern route in spite of the fact that Congress had probably intended the central route to be employed.