The House was still more active in its initiatory steps toward a policy. The resolution for the establishment of a joint committee on reconstruction was introduced by Mr. Stevens at the first opportunity on the opening day, and immediately adopted. This resolution, after having been discussed in a Republican caucus,[68] was taken up for consideration in the Senate on December 12,[69] was made a concurrent resolution, that it might not need the approval of the President, and was passed with amendments. The debate on this resolution is of especial importance as the first formal test of the attitude of the individual Senators towards the administration. It brought out the fact that Senators Cowan of Pennsylvania, Dixon of Connecticut, and Doolittle of Wisconsin, would support the administration and oppose the congressional policy. Senator Norton, of Minnesota, soon joined their ranks, and Senator Lane[70] of Kansas, broke from the party on the Civil Rights bill. The remaining Republican senators, while exhibiting natural differences of opinion, were united in their hostility to the existing method of restoration. The resolution, as amended and concurred in by the House, provided for a joint committee of fifteen, nine from the House and six from the Senate, "who shall inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they or any of them are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress, with leave to report at any time by bill or otherwise."[71] The appointment of this committee, with Thaddeus Stevens as a member, although Senator Fessenden of Maine was chairman, marks an important epoch in the history of reconstruction.[72] Stevens, now the virtual leader of the House, represented a policy to which Johnson was thoroughly antagonistic, and from this time forth everything relating to the reconstruction of the Southern States was to be referred to this committee. In addition, the committee took large masses of testimony from southerners, federal officers, and northerners travelling through the Southern States, in order that an intelligent judgment might be reached regarding the actual condition of these States. The bills in which they embodied the results of their investigations constituted the basis of the final reconstruction. The ill-defined sentiment of the Republicans, that the proper mode of dealing with the Southern States had not been found, was to be replaced by a vigorous policy which looked primarily to the proper protection of the freedman.