Conger prevented action on that day, but the resolution came up again on Feb. 15, 1878. Representative John H. Reagan of Texas, who had been the Postmaster-General of the rebel Cabinet, then took charge of the measure, and assured the House that the resolution was a purely formal matter, that it only provided for the payment of liabilities incurred before the war commenced, and that the rebel government had never paid these men for the same services. The Hon. Edwin Willits of Michigan, by a timely examination of the phraseology of the resolution, discovered that it provided for the payment of these contractors, not down to the actual beginning of the rebellion, but until May 31st, 1861, many weeks after the rebel government had been formed and after the firing upon Fort Sumter. Calling attention to this fact, he obtained the further postponement of the consideration of the resolution. When it came up again (on March 8, 1878) Mr. Willits came to the House armed with a volume of the rebel statutes and with important extracts from documents contained in the rebel archives. With this evidence he demonstrated in ten minutes' time, beyond question, that the rebel government had assumed the payment of this class of claims, that it confiscated United States money and applied it to that purpose, that the men so paid agreed to refund to the rebel treasury any money subsequently given them on this account by the United States, and that the joint resolution was but an attempt to pay a second time contracts already paid and also properly declared forfeited through treason. The scene attendant upon this _expose_ was a dramatic one, and it resulted in the virtual abandonment then of the measure by those who were responsible for it. This result would not have been possible, had not the rebel archives thus opportunely yielded up their secrets. Their possession by the government is undoubtedly worth millions to the Treasury.