protections of slavery under the U.S. Constitution as extensions of private property rights, therefore he supported the Union. But when it became clear that Texas would secede, Reagan resigned from Congress on January 15, 1861, and returned home to the state to defend it. He participated in the secession convention that met at Austin on January 31, 1861. Chosen as a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress, within a month Reagan was appointed by President Jefferson Davis to his cabinet as Postmaster General. Civil War Reagan was an able administrator, presiding over the only cabinet department that was described as functioning well during the war. Despite the hostilities, the United States Post Office Department continued operations in the Confederacy until June 1, 1861, when the Confederate service took over its functions. Reagan sent an agent to Washington, D.C., with letters asking the heads of the United States Post Office Department's various bureaus to come work for him. Nearly all did so, and brought copies of their records, contracts, account books, etc. "Reagan in effect had stolen the U.S. Post Office," historian William C. Davis later wrote. When President Davis asked his cabinet for the status of their departments, Reagan reported he had his up and running in six weeks. Davis was amazed. Reagan cut expenses by eliminating costly and little-used routes and forcing railroads that carried the mail to reduce their rates. Despite the problems the war caused, his department managed to turn a profit, "the only post office department in American history to pay its own way," wrote William C. Davis. Reagan was the only member of the cabinet to oppose Robert E. Lee's offensive into Pennsylvania in June–July 1863. He instead supported a proposal to detach the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce Joseph E. Johnston in Mississippi, in order to break the Siege of Vicksburg. Historian Shelby Foote noted that, as the only Cabinet member from west of the Mississippi, Reagan was acutely aware of the critical consequences of Vicksburg's capture and control of the river by Union forces. When Davis abandoned Richmond on April 2, 1865, shortly before the entry of Army of the Potomac under George G. Meade, Reagan accompanied the president on his flight to the Carolinas. On April 27, Davis made him Secretary of the Treasury after George A. Trenholm's resignation. Reagan served in that capacity until he, Davis,