When Congress met in December, 1859, the provisional territory of Jefferson was in operation, while its delegates in Washington were urging the need for governmental action. To their influence, President Buchanan added, on February 20, 1860, a message transmitting the petition from the Pike's Peak country. The Senate, upon April 3, received a report from the Committee on Territories introducing Senate Bill No. 366, for the erection of Colorado territory, while Grow of Pennsylvania reported to the House on May 10 a bill to erect in the same region a territory of Idaho. The name of Jefferson disappeared from the project in the spring of 1860, its place being taken by sundry other names for the same mountain area. Several weeks were given, in part, to debate over this Colorado-Idaho scheme, though as usual the debate turned less upon the need for this territorial government than upon the attitude which the bill should take toward the slavery issue. The slavery controversy prevented territorial legislation in this session, but the reasonableness of the Colorado demand was well established. The territory of Jefferson, as organized in November, 1859, had been from the first recognized as merely a temporary expedient. The movement for it had gained weight in the summer of that year from the probability that it need not be maintained for many months. When Congress, however, failed in the ensuing session of 1859-1860 to grant the relief for which the pioneers had prayed, the wisdom of continuing for a second year the life of a government admitted to be illegal came into question. The first session of its legislature had lasted from November 7, 1859, to January 25, 1860. It had passed comprehensive laws for the regulation of titles in lands, water, and mines, and had adopted civil and criminal codes. Its courts had been established and had operated with some show of authority. But the service and obedience to the government had been voluntary, no funds being on hand for the payment of salaries and expenses. One of the pioneers from Vermont wrote home, "There is no hopes [_sic_] of perfect quiet in our governmental matters until we are securely under the wing of our National Eagle." In his proclamation calling the second election Governor Steele announced that "all persons who expect to be elected to any of the above offices should bear in mind that there will be no salaries or per diem allowed from this territory, but that the General Government will be memorialized to aid us in our adversity."