Contracts for carrying the mail of the United States were made
by S. & S. with the Postmaster General of the United States out
of which certain allowances and credits were made in favor of S.
& S. by that officer, and the amount of the same was passed to
the credit of S. & S. with the General Post Office. The
successor of the Postmaster General struck out the allowances and
credits in the accounts, and thus a large sum of money was withheld
from the contractors. S. & S. presented a memorial to Congress,
and an act was passed authorizing and directing the Solicitor of
the Treasury of the United States to settle and adjust the claims
of S. & S. according to the principles of equity and directing
the Postmaster General to credit S. & S. with whatever sum of
money the Solicitor should decide should be due to them. The
Solicitor of the Treasury made a decision on the claims of S. &
S., and communicated the same to the Postmaster General, who
thereupon, carried to the credit of S. & S. a part, but refused
to credit a part of the amount allowed by the Solicitor. S. &
S. applied to the President of the United States, who referred the
subject to Congress, and the Senate of the United States determined
that no further legislation on the subject was necessary and that
the decision of the Solicitor of the Treasury ought to be complied
with by the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General continued to
withhold the credit. S. & S. applied to the Circuit Court of
the United States for the District of Columbia for a mandamus, to
be directed to the Postmaster General commanding him to credit them
with the amount found to be due to them from the United States
according to the decision of the Solicitor of the Treasury. A
peremptory mandamus was finally ordered, and the Postmaster General
brought the case before the Supreme Court by a writ of error.
By the court.
"It has been considered by the counsel on the part of the
Postmaster General that this is a proceeding against him to enforce
the performance of an official duty, and the proceeding has been
treated as an infringement on the Executive Department of the
government, which has led to a very extended range of argument on
the independence and duties of that department, but which,
according to the view taken by the Court of the case, is entirely
misapplied. We do not think the proceeding in this case interferes
in any respect whatever with the rights and duties of the executive
or that it involves any conflict of powers between the executive
and judicial departments of the government. The mandamus does not
seek to direct or control the Postmaster General in the discharge
of his official duty partaking in any respect of an executive
character, but to enforce the performance of a mere ministerial
act, which neither he nor the President had any authority to deny
or control."
The judgment of the circuit court was affirmed.
By the act of Congress directing the Solicitor of the Treasury
to adjust and settle the accounts of S. & S., the Postmaster
General is vested with no discretion or control over the decision
of the Solicitor, nor is any appeal or review of that decision
provided for by the act. The terms of the submission was a matter
resting entirely in the discretion of Congress, and if it thought
proper to vest such a
Page 37 U. S. 525
power in anyone, and especially as the arbitrator was an officer
of the government; it did not rest with the Postmaster General to
control Congress or the Solicitor in that affair. It is unnecessary
to say how far Congress might have interfered by legislation after
the report of the Solicitor, but if there was no fraud or
misconduct in the arbitrator -- of which none is pretended or
suggested -- it may well be questioned whether S. & S. had not
acquired such a vested right as to be beyond the power of Congress
to deprive them of it.
The right of S. & S. to the full amount of the credit,
according to the report of the Solicitor of the Treasury, having
been ascertained and fixed by law, the enforcement of that right
falls properly within judicial cognizance.
It was urged at the bar that the Postmaster General was alone
subject to the direction and control of the President of the United
States with respect to the execution of the duty imposed on him by
the law under which the Solicitor of the Treasury acted, and this
right of the President was claimed as growing out of the obligation
imposed upon him by the Constitution to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed.
By the Court
"This doctrine cannot receive the sanction of this Court. It
would be vesting in the President a dispensing power which has no
countenance for its support in any part of the Constitution, and is
asserting a principle which, if carried out in its results to all
cases falling within it, would be clothing the President with a
power to control the legislation of Congress and paralyze the
administration of justice."
To contend that the obligations imposed on the President to see
the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their
execution is a novel construction of the Constitution, and is
entirely inadmissible.
The act required by the law to be done by the Postmaster General
is simply to credit S. & S. with the full amount of the award
of the Solicitor of the Treasury. This is a precise, definite act,
purely ministerial, and about which the Postmaster General has no
discretion whatever. This was not an official act in any other
sense than being a transaction in the department where the books
and accounts were kept, and was an official act in the same sense
that an entry in the minutes of the court pursuant to an order of
the court is an official act. There is no room for the exercise of
discretion, official or otherwise. All that is shut out by the
direct and positive command of the law, and the act required to be
done is in every just sense a mere ministerial act.
The common law, as it was in force in Maryland when the cession
of the part of the state within the District of Columbia was made
to the United States, remained in force in the District. The writ
of mandamus which issued in this case in the District Court of the
District of Columbia must be considered as it was at common law
with respect to its object and purpose, and varying only in the
form required by the different character of the government of the
United States. It is a writ, in England, issuing out of the King's
Bench in the name of the King, and is called a prerogative writ,
but considered a writ of right, and is directed to some person,
corporation, or inferior court, requiring them to do some
particular thing therein specified which appertains to their office
and which is supposed to be consonant to right and justice, and
where there is no other adequate, specific remedy, such a writ and
for such a purpose would seem to be peculiarly appropriate to the
present case. The right claimed is just and established by positive
law, and the duty required to be performed is clear and specific,
and there is no other adequate remedy.
The cases of
McIntire v.
Wood, 7 Cranch 504, and
McClung v.
Silliman, 6 Wheat.
Page 37 U. S. 526
590, have decided that the circuit courts of the United States
in the several states have no power to issue a mandamus against one
of the officers of the United States.
The result of the cases of
McIntire v. Wood and
McCluny v. Silliman clearly is that the authority to issue
the writ of mandamus to an officer of the United States commanding
him to perform a specific act required by a law of the United
States is within the scope of the judicial powers of the United
States under the Constitution, but that the whole of that power has
not been communicated by law to the circuit courts of the United
States in the several states. It is a dormant power, not yet called
into action and vested in those courts. And there is nothing
growing out of the official character of a party that will exempt
him from this writ if the act to be performed is merely
ministerial.
It is a sound principle that in every well organized government
the judicial powers should be coextensive with the legislative, so
far at least as they are to be enforced by judicial
proceedings.
There is in the District of Columbia no division of powers
between the general and state governments. Congress has the entire
control over the district for every purpose of government, and it
is reasonable to suppose that in organizing a judicial department
in this District, all the judicial power necessary for the purposes
of government would be vested in the courts of justice. The circuit
court in the District is the highest court of original
jurisdiction, and if the power to issue a mandamus in such a case
as that before the Court exists in any court, it is vested in that
court.
At the date of the act of Congress establishing the government
of the District of Columbia, the common law of England was in force
in Maryland, and of course remained and continued in force in the
part of the District ceded by Maryland to the United States. The
power to issue a mandamus in a proper case is a part of the common
law, and it has been fully recognized as in practical operation in
a case decided in the court of that state.
The power to issue the writ of mandamus is, in England, given to
the King's Bench only, as having the general supervising power over
all inferior jurisdictions and officers, and is coextensive with
judicial power. And the same theory prevails in the state
governments of the United States, where the common law is adopted
and governs in the administration of justice, and the power of
issuing this writ is generally confided to the highest court of
original jurisdiction.
There can be no doubt but that in the State of Maryland, a writ
of mandamus might be issued to an executive officer commanding him
to perform a ministerial act required of him by the laws, and if it
would lie in that state, there can be no good reason why it should
not lie in the District of Columbia in analogous cases.
The powers of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the
circuit courts of the United States to issue writs of mandamus,
granted by the 14th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, is only
for the purpose of bringing the case to a final judgment or decree
so that it may be reviewed. The mandamus does not direct the
inferior court how to proceed, but only that it must proceed,
according to its own judgment, to a final determination; otherwise
it cannot be reviewed in the appellate court. It is different in
the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, under the adoption
of the laws of Maryland, which included the common law.
The power of the circuit Court of the District of Columbia to
exercise the jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus to a public
officer to do an act required of him by law results from the 3d
section of the Act of Congress of February 27, 1801,
Page 37 U. S. 527
which declares that the court and the judges thereof shall have
all the power by law vested in the circuit courts of the United
States. The circuit courts referred to were those established by
the Act of February l3, 1801. The repeal of that law fifteen months
afterwards, and after the Circuit Court for this District had been
organized and had gone into operation under the Act of 27 February,
1901, could not in any manner affect that law any further than was
provided by the repealing act.
It was not an uncommon course of legislation in the states at an
early day to adopt by reference, British statutes, and this has
been the course by legislation in Congress in many instances when
state practice and state process has been adopted. And such
adoption has always been considered as referring to the law
existing at the time of adoption, and no subsequent legislation has
ever been supposed to affect it; and such must necessarily be the
effect and operation of such adoption.
No court can, in the ordinary administration of justice in
common law proceedings, exercise jurisdiction over a party unless
he shall voluntarily appear or is found within the jurisdiction of
the court so as to be served with process. Such process cannot
reach the party beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the court.
This is a personal privilege which may be waived by appearance, and
if advantage is to be taken of it, it must be by plea or some other
mode at an early stage of the cause.
On the twenty-sixty day of May, 1837, William B. Stokes, Richard
C. Stockton, Lucius W. Stockton, and Daniel Moore presented a
petition to the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia for the
County of Washington stating that under contracts duly and legally
made by them with the late William T. Barry, then Postmaster
General of the United States, and duly authorized by law, they were
entitled to certain credits and allowances on their contracts for
the transportation of the mail of the United States; that the
credits and allowances were made and given to them on their
contracts and amounts of money actually paid on such accounts; that
sometime in 1835, William T. Barry resigned his situation as
Postmaster General and Amos Kendall was appointed to the office;
that after he had entered on the duties of his office, he undertook
to reexamine the contracts entered into by his predecessor and the
credits and allowances made by him, and ordered and directed the
allowances and credits to be withdrawn and the petitioners
recharged with divers payments they had received.
The petitioners state that they were dissatisfied with these
proceedings of Amos Kendall as Postmaster General, and believing he
had
Page 37 U. S. 528
exceeded his authority, and being unable to adjust their
differences with him, they addressed a memorial to the Congress of
the United States. A copy of the memorial was annexed to the
petition.
The memorial stated at large all the circumstances which the
petitioners considered as affecting their case, the proceedings of
the Postmaster General in the matter, and the heavy grievances done
to the memorialists by the course adopted by the Postmaster
General. They ask such proceedings on the part of Congress as its
wisdom and justice may direct.
The petition states that Congress passed an Act which was
approved by the President of the United States on 2 July, 1836,
which act provided
"That the Solicitor of the Treasury be and he is hereby
authorized and directed to settle and adjust the claims of William
B. Stokes, Richard C. Stockton, of Maryland, and Lucius W.
Stockton, and Daniel Moore of Pennsylvania for extra services
performed by them as contractors for carrying the mail under and by
virtue of certain contracts therefor alleged to have been made and
entered into with them by William T. Barry, late Postmaster General
of the United States, and for this purpose to inquire into and
determine the equity of the claims of them or any of them for or on
account of any contract or additional contract with the said
Postmaster General on which their pay may have been suspended by
the present Postmaster General, and to make them such allowances
therefor as upon a full examination of all the evidence may seem
right according to the principles of equity, and that the said
Postmaster General be and he is hereby directed to credit such mail
contractors with whatever sum or sums of money, if any, the said
Solicitor shall so decide to be due to them for or an account of
any such service or contract, and the Solicitor is hereby
authorized to take testimony, if he shall judge it to be necessary
to do so, and that he report to Congress at its next session the
law and the facts upon which his decision has been founded,
provided the said Solicitor is not authorized to make any allowance
for any suspension or withholding of money by the present
Postmaster General for allowances or overpayments made by his
predecessor on route number thirteen hundred and seventy-one from
Philadelphia to Baltimore for carrying the mail in steamboats when
it was not so carried by said Stockton and Stockes, but by the
steamboat company, nor for any suspension or withholding of money
as aforesaid for allowances or overpayments made as aforesaid for
carrying an express mail from Baltimore
Page 37 U. S. 529
to York or Lancaster, nor for any suspension or withholding of
money as aforesaid for allowances or overpayments made as aforesaid
on route number thirteen hundred and ninety-one, from Westminster
to McConnerston, as described in the improved bid, nor for any
suspension or withholding of money as aforesaid for allowances or
overpayments as aforesaid on the route from Baltimore to Wheeling
for running a certain daily line to Hagerstown and Wheeling, from
the first of September, eighteen hundred and thirty-two to the
first of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-three, when the line
referred to only run tri-weekly, nor for any suspension or
withholding of money as aforesaid for allowances or overpayments,
made as aforesaid on the route from Baltimore to Washington under
the contract of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, but nothing in
this proviso shall prejudice any application they may make
hereafter in reference to these routes, if they shall think it
proper to make such application."
The petition states that in pursuance and in execution of this
act, Virgil Maxey, being Solicitor of the Treasury, did proceed to
examine adjust and settle the said claims, and on 12 November,
1836, did make out and transmit to the said Amos Kendall,
Postmaster General, in part, his award and decision upon certain
items of said claims so referred to him, and on 23 November, 1836,
he communicated to the Postmaster General his decision and award on
the residue of the claims of the petitioners.
The decision of the Solicitor of the Treasury of 12 December,
1836, after stating the particular items of account, from which the
balances arose, was as follows:
"I therefore, in pursuance of the authority conferred on me by
the aforementioned act of Congress, make allowance to said Richard
C. Stockton for his said claims up to 1 April, 1835, of the above
sum of eighty-three thousand two hundred and seventy-eight
dollars."
"I also, by virtue of the same authority, make allowance to said
Stockton, for his said claims for extra services, from 1 April to
31 December, 1835, of the said sum of twenty-six thousand eight
hundred and sixty-two dollars."
"A claim for interest having been made, I have postponed the
consideration of it until the equity of the other claims of the
gentlemen
Page 37 U. S. 530
named in the title of the act shall have been inquired into and
determined."
On 22 November, 1836, the Solicitor made a final award, which
was also communicated by him to the Postmaster General. That award,
after setting forth the items of the accounts presented and
established in the judgment of the Solicitor of the Treasury
against the United States, was:
"I have examined the evidence touching the above claims, and
find due to the petitioners or to Richard C. Stockton the following
sums: for additional daily mail to Washington, thirty-four thousand
two hundred dollars. For compensation for carrying the mail in the
spring of 1831 between Baltimore and Philadelphia and for other
services connected therewith, less two hundred and ninety-four
dollars, the sum of eleven thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven
dollars and sixteen cents. Claims for interest, four thousand eight
hundred and thirty-six dollars and eighty-nine cents, one thousand
six hundred and sixty-four dollars and seventy cents, and three
hundred and ninety-two dollars and thirty-four cents."
The petitioners state that under and by virtue of the award of
the Solicitor of the Treasury, they became entitled to have the sum
of one hundred and sixty-two thousand seven hundred and
twenty-seven dollars and five cents carried to their credit, or at
least, after allowing some deductions therefrom made by the said
Solicitor with their assent, the sum of one hundred and sixty-one
thousand five hundred and sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine
cents, as the amount of principal and interest due to them by the
terms of the award and decision.
"But the said Postmaster General, although fully notified of the
premises and after a considerable delay, only so far obeyed and
carried into execution the said act of Congress and said award as
to direct and cause to be carried to the credit of the petitioners
the sum of one hundred and twenty-two thousand one hundred and one
dollars and forty-six cents, which said last mentioned sum of money
has been accordingly paid or credited to the petitioners, and he
has from that time, and does still refuse, omit, and neglect,
notwithstanding the provisions of said act of Congress, and the
said award and decision of said Solicitor of the Treasury, so made,
communicated and reported, as aforesaid, to pay, or credit to the
petitioners the residue of the said sum so awarded, being the sum
of thirty-nine thousand four hundred and sixty-two dollars and
forty-three cents, or to credit or
Page 37 U. S. 531
pay to the petitioners or either of them the interest upon the
said balance so unjustly and illegally withheld."
The petition states that after the refusal, omission, or neglect
of Amos Kendall to execute his duty by obeying the act of Congress
in passing the amount awarded to his credit, the petitioners
communicated the facts of their case to the President of the United
States, requesting him to cause the said act of Congress to be
executed, who thereupon transmitted the same to Amos Kendall, the
Postmaster General, and having received a reply to the same,
stating why he had thus refused to comply with the award and
suggesting an application to Congress for further legislation. The
President, in December, 1836, transmitted this reply to the
petitioners, and in his communication says:
"It appearing that there is a difference of opinion between the
Solicitor and the Postmaster General, upon the extent of the
reference under the law to the Solicitor, the Postmaster General
having yielded to what he believes to be all that was submitted by
the law to the Solicitor's decision, and paid the same. But,
Congress being now in session, and the best expounder of the intent
and meaning of its own law, I think it right and proper under
existing circumstances to refer it to that body for its decision. I
deem this course proper as the difference in opinion about the
extent of the submission, under the law, arises between the head of
the Post Office Department and the Solicitor of the Treasury, and
as it appears the Solicitor has reversed in part his decision and
award."
The petitioners, in consequence of this correspondence,
presented to Congress a memorial which in the Senate was referred
to the committee on the judiciary.
The petition refers to the reports of the Judiciary Committee of
the Senate of January 20, 1837, and February 17, 1837, and to the
correspondence between the Postmaster General and the chairman of
the committee, copies of which are annexed to the petition. The
concluding part of the report of the judiciary committee of January
20, 1837, was as follows:
"That Congress intended the award of the Solicitor to be final
is apparent from the direction of the act"
"That the Postmaster General be and he is hereby directed to
credit such mail contractors with whatever sum or sums of money, if
any, the said Solicitor shall so decide to be due to them. . . . If
Congress had intended to revise the decision of the Solicitor, the
Postmaster General would not have been directed to make the payment
without the intervention or further
Page 37 U. S. 532
action of Congress. Unless it appeared, which is not suggested
by anyone, that some cause exists which would vitiate or set aside
the award between private parties before a judicial tribunal, the
committee cannot recommend the interference of Congress to set
aside this award, and more especially as it has been made by a high
officer selected by the government and the petitioners have been
subjected to the trouble and expense of investigating their claims
before a tribunal created by Congress itself."
"It appears that since the award was made by the Solicitor, the
Postmaster General has paid to the petitioners the sum of one
hundred and twenty thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight dollars
and thirty cents, leaving the balance of forty thousand six hundred
and twenty-five dollars and fifty-nine cents unpaid of the sums
awarded in favor of the petitioners. From the view which the
committee has taken, the conclusion at which it has arrived is that
the whole amount decided to be due and owing to the petitioners by
the Solicitor of the Treasury ought to be paid to them out of the
funds of the Post Office Department according to the directions of
the act entitled 'An act for the relief of William B. Stokes,
Richard C. Stockton, Lucius W. Stockton, and Daniel Moore,' and
that no further action of Congress is necessary; therefore the
committee recommend the adoption of the following resolution: "
"Resolved that the Postmaster General is fully warranted in
paying and ought to pay to William B. Stokes and others,
respectively, the full amount of the award of the Solicitor of the
Treasury."
The report of February 17, 1837, on the message of the President
of the United States of 15 February, 1837, with the accompanying
documents in relation to the claims of Stockton and Stokes and
others, contain the following:
"The committee has considered the documents communicated, and
cannot discover any cause for changing its opinion upon any of the
principles advanced in its former report upon this subject, nor the
correctness of its application to this case. It therefore
recommends the adoption of the resolution heretofore reported by
the committee."
The petition to the court proceeds to state that the principal
ground of the refusal, neglect, and omission of the Postmaster
General to execute and obey the act of Congress and to give the
petitioners credit for the full amount of the award of the
Solicitor of the Treasury was, as represented by him, that the said
Solicitor had transcended
Page 37 U. S. 533
the authority created and conferred on him by the act in so
awarding and deciding, whereas the contrary is the fact, and the
Solicitor, on being apprised that a doubt existed as to the extent
of his authority, he did submit the said question to the Attorney
General of the United States to obtain his opinion. The opinion of
the Attorney General confirmed the construction of the law given by
the Solicitor of the Treasury.
The petition proceeds to state that the
"petitioners conceiving and believing that they are and have
been entitled to the whole sum so awarded by the said Solicitor
passed to their credit on the books of the Post Office Department,
and to receive the amount which, after the said entry, should
appear justly due to them, with legal interest upon the balance,
have applied to the said Amos Kendall, Postmaster General, as
aforesaid, to have the said credits, so entered, and the said
moneys so paid, which he has continually refused, and still refuses
and neglects to do, and the Congress of the United States will not
pass any other or further law, as it is believed, merely because
they have already passed one sufficient to meet the case, so that
the only means of obtaining the money which is justly due to the
petitioners is by application to your Honorable Court."
"Wherefore, your petitioners do respectfully pray that your
Honors, the premises considered, will award the United States writ
of mandamus to be directed to the said Amos Kendall, Postmaster
General of the United States, commanding him:"
"1. That he shall fully comply with, obey, and execute, the
aforesaid Act of Congress of July 2, 1836, by crediting your
petitioners with the full and entire sum so awarded, as aforesaid,
in their favor by the Solicitor of the Treasury, as aforesaid, in
conformity with said award and decision."
"2. That he shall pay to your petitioners the full amount so
awarded with interest thereon, deducting only the amount which
shall be justly charged or chargeable to your memorialists against
the same."
On 26 May, 1837, the District Court of the County of Washington
made a rule in the case on the motion of the relators by their
counsel:
"That the said Amos Kendall, Postmaster General of the United
States, show cause on Thursday, the first of June next, why the
said writ of mandamus should not issue as prayed by the said
memorialists, and that a copy of this order be served on the said
Amos Kendall, Postmaster General, as aforesaid. "
Page 37 U. S. 534
A copy of the rule was served as directed, and was so certified
by the Marshal of the District of Columbia. Afterwards, on 7 June,
1837, on the motion of the relators by their counsel, the court
ordered a mandamus
nisi to issue directed to the
Postmaster General, which writ was issued on the same day.
The mandamus
nisi, after stating the proceedings which
had taken place in the case, proceeded as follows:
"Therefore you are hereby commanded and enjoined that
immediately after the receipt of this writ and without delay, you
do fully comply with, obey, and execute on your part the aforesaid
Act of Congress of 2 July, 1836, by crediting said mail contractors
with the full and entire sum so awarded and decided as aforesaid to
be due to them by the Solicitor of the Treasury according to the
true intent and meaning of the said award and decision, so that
complaint be not again made to the said circuit court, and that you
certify perfect obedience to and due execution of this writ to the
said circuit court on Saturday the tenth day of June instant, or
that you do at ten o'clock of that day show cause to the said court
why you have not so done as commanded."
On 10 June, 1837, the relators, by their counsel, and Amos
Kendall, by his counsel, appeared in court, and further time was
given, on motion, to Amos Kendall to file his answer.
On 24 June, 1837, the answer of the Postmaster General was
filed.
The answer contained the following causes "for declining
obedience to the order of the court," with a full argument upon
each of them:
"First. It is doubted whether, under the Constitution of the
United States, it confers on the judiciary department of the
government authority to control the Executive Department in the
exercise of its functions of whatsoever character."
"Second. If according to the Constitution the Circuit Court for
the District of Columbia might be clothed by law to issue a
mandamus in such a case, no such power has been conferred upon it
by the act of Congress."
"Third. If, by the Constitution, Congress can clothe the courts
with authority to issue writs of mandamus against executive
officers as such, and if it has vested the general power in this
Court by law, this is not a case in which that power can be
lawfully exercised. "
Page 37 U. S. 535
"Fourth. The court has ordered the Postmaster General to perform
a legal impossibility."
To this answer of the Postmaster General, the opinion of the
Attorney General of the United States on the whole of the case, and
sustaining the views of the Postmaster General, was annexed
On 13 July, 1837, the circuit court ordered a peremptory
mandamus, to be directed to the Postmaster General to be issued.
The Postmaster General prosecuted this writ of error.
Page 37 U. S. 608
MR. JUSTICE THOMPSON delivered the opinion of the Court:
This case was brought before the Court below by petition setting
out certain contracts made between the relators and the late
Postmaster General upon which they claimed certain credits and
allowances upon their contracts for the transportation of the
mail.
"That credits and allowances were duly made by the late
Postmaster General. That the present Postmaster General when he
came into office, reexamined the contracts entered into with his
predecessor and the allowances made by him and the credits and
payments which had been made, and directed that the allowances and
credits should be withdrawn and the relators recharged with divers
payments they had received. That the relators presented a memorial
to Congress on the subject, upon which a law was passed on 21 July,
1836, for their relief, by which the Solicitor of the Treasury was
authorized and directed to settle and adjust the claims of the
relators
Page 37 U. S. 609
for extra services performed by them, to inquire into and
determine the equity of such claims, and to make the relators such
allowance therefor as upon full examination of all the evidence may
seem right according to the principles of equity. And that the
Postmaster General be and he is hereby directed to credit the
relators with whatever sum or sums of money, if any, the Solicitor
shall so decide to be due to them for and on account of any such
service or contract."
And the petition further sets out, that the Solicitor, Virgil
Maxcy, assumed upon himself the performance of the duty and
authority created and conferred upon him by the law, and did make
out and communicate his decision and award to the Postmaster
General, by which award and decision the relators were allowed one
hundred and sixty-one thousand five hundred and sixty-three dollars
and eighty-nine cents. That the Postmaster General, on being
notified of the award, only so far obeyed and carried into
execution the act of Congress as to direct and cause to be carried
to the credit of the relators the sum of one hundred and twenty-two
thousand one hundred and two dollars and forty-six cents. But that
he has and still does refuse and neglect to credit the relators
with the residue of the sum so awarded by the Solicitor, amounting
to thirty-nine thousand four hundred and sixty-two dollars and
forty-three cents. And the petition prayed the court to award a
mandamus directed to the Postmaster General commanding him fully to
comply with, obey. and execute the said act of Congress by
crediting the relators with the full and entire sum awarded in
their favor by the Solicitor of the Treasury.
Such proceedings were afterwards had in the case that a
peremptory mandamus was ordered commanding the said Amos Kendall,
Postmaster General, forthwith to credit the relators with the full
amount awarded and decided by the Solicitor of the Treasury to be
due to the relators.
The questions arising upon this case may be considered under two
general inquiries:
1. Does the record present a proper case for a mandamus, and if
so then
2. Had the Circuit Court of this District jurisdiction of the
case and authority to issue the writ.
Under the first head of inquiry it has been considered by the
counsel on the part of the Postmaster General that this is a
proceeding against him to enforce the performance of an official
duty. And
Page 37 U. S. 610
the proceeding has been treated as an infringement upon the
Executive Department of the government, which has led to a very
extended range of argument on the independence and duties of that
department, but which, according to the view taken by the Court of
the case, is entirely misapplied. We do not think the proceeding in
this case interferes in any respect whatever with the rights or
duties of the executive or that it involves any conflict of powers
between the executive and judicial departments of the government.
The mandamus does not seek to direct or control the Postmaster
General in the discharge of any official duty partaking in any
respect of an executive character, but to enforce the performance
of a mere ministerial act which neither he nor the President had
any authority to deny or control.
We shall not, therefore, enter into any particular examination
of the line to be drawn between the powers of the executive and
judicial departments of the government. The theory of the
Constitution undoubtedly is that the great powers of the government
are divided into separate departments, and so far as these powers
are derived from the Constitution, the departments may be regarded
as independent of each other. But beyond that, all are subject to
regulations by law touching the discharge of the duties required to
be performed.
The executive power is vested in a President, and as far as his
powers are derived from the Constitution, he is beyond the reach of
any other department except in the mode prescribed by the
Constitution through the impeaching power. But it by no means
follows that every officer in every branch of that department is
under the exclusive direction of the President. Such a principle,
we apprehend, is not and certainly cannot be claimed by the
President.
There are certain political duties imposed upon many officers in
the Executive Department the discharge of which is under the
direction of the President. But it would be an alarming doctrine
that Congress cannot impose upon any executive officer any duty
they may think proper which is not repugnant to any rights secured
and protected by the Constitution, and in such cases the duty and
responsibility grow out of and are subject to the control of the
law, and not to the direction of the President. And this is
emphatically the case where the duty enjoined is of a mere
ministerial character.
Let us proceed, then, to an examination of the act required by
the mandamus to be performed by the Postmaster General, and his
obligation to perform, or his right to resist the performance,
must
Page 37 U. S. 611
depend upon the Act of Congress of 2 July, 1836. This is a
special act for the relief of the relators, Stockton & Stokes,
and was passed, as appears on its face, to adjust and settle
certain claims which they had for extra services, as contractors
for carrying the mail. These claims were, of course, upon the
United States through the Postmaster General. The real parties to
the dispute were therefore the relators and the United States. The
United States could not, of course, be sued or the claims in any
way enforced against the United States without its consent obtained
through an act of Congress, by which it consented to submit these
claims to the Solicitor of the Treasury to inquire into and
determine the equity of the claims and to make such allowance
therefor as upon a full examination of all the evidence, should
seem right according to the principles of equity. And the act
directs the Postmaster General to credit the relators with whatever
sum, if any, the Solicitor shall decide to be due to them for or on
account of any such service or contract.
The Solicitor did examine and decide that there was due to the
relators one hundred and sixty-one thousand five hundred and
sixty-three dollars and ninety-three cents; of this sum, the
Postmaster General credited them with one hundred and twenty-two
thousand one hundred and one dollars and forty-six cents, leaving
due the sum of thirty-nine thousand for hundred and seventy-two
dollars and forty-seven cents which he refused to carry to their
credit. And the object of the mandamus was to compel him to give
credit for this balance.
Under this law, the Postmaster General is vested with no
discretion or control over the decisions of the Solicitor, nor is
any appeal or review of that decision provided for by the act. The
terms of the submission was a matter resting entirely in the
discretion of Congress, and if it thought proper to vest such a
power in anyone, and especially as the arbitrator was an officer of
the government, it did not rest with the Postmaster General to
control Congress or the Solicitor in that affair. It is unnecessary
to say how far Congress might have interfered by legislation after
the report of the Solicitor. But if there was no fraud or
misconduct in the arbitrator -- of which none is pretended or
suggested -- it may well be questioned whether the relators had not
acquired such a vested right as to be beyond the power of Congress
to deprive them of it.
But so far from Congress' attempting to deprive the relators of
the
Page 37 U. S. 612
benefit of the award, it may be considered as impliedly
sanctioning and approving of the decisions of the Solicitor. It is
at least so to be considered by one branch of the legislature.
After the Postmaster General had refused to credit the relators
with the full amount of the award of the Solicitor, they, under the
advice of the President, presented a memorial to Congress setting
out the report of the Solicitor and the refusal of the Postmaster
General to give them credit for the amount of the award and praying
Congress to provide such remedy for the denial of their rights as
in its wisdom might seem right and proper.
Upon this memorial, the judiciary committee of the Senate made a
report in which it said
"that Congress intended the award of the Solicitor to be final
is apparent from the direction of the act that the Postmaster
General be, and he is hereby directed to credit such mail
contractors with whatever sum the Solicitor shall decide to be due
to them."
If Congress had intended to revise the decision of the
Solicitor, the Postmaster General would not have been directed to
make the payment without the intervention or further action of
Congress. That unless it appeared, which is not suggested by
anyone, that some cause exists which would vitiate or set aside the
award between private parties before a judicial tribunal, the
committee could not recommend the interference of Congress to set
aside this award, and more especially as it has been made by a high
officer, selected by the government, and the committee concluded
its report with a resolution
"That the Postmaster General is fully warranted in paying and
ought to pay to William B. Stokes and others the full amount of the
award of the Solicitor of the Treasury,"
which resolution was unanimously adopted by the Senate. After
such a decided expression of the opinion of one branch of Congress,
it would not have been necessary to apply to the other. Even if the
relators were bound to make any application to Congress for relief,
which they clearly were not, their right to the full amount of the
credit, according to the report of the Solicitor, having been
ascertained and fixed by law, the enforcement of that right falls
properly within judicial cognizance.
It was urged at the bar that the Postmaster General was alone
subject to the direction and control of the President, with respect
to the execution of the duty imposed upon him by this law, and this
right of the President is claimed as growing out of the obligation
imposed upon him by the Constitution to take care that the laws
be
Page 37 U. S. 613
faithfully executed. This is a doctrine that cannot receive the
sanction of this Court. It would be vesting in the President a
dispensing power which has no countenance for its support in any
part of the Constitution, and is asserting a principle which, if
carried out in its results to all cases falling within it, would be
clothing the President with a power entirely to control the
legislation of Congress and paralyze the administration of
justice.
To contend that the obligation imposed on the President to see
the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their
execution is a novel construction of the Constitution, and entirely
inadmissible. But although the argument necessarily leads to such a
result, we do not perceive from the case that any such power has
been claimed by the President. But on the contrary, it is fairly to
be inferred that such power was disclaimed. He did not forbid or
advise the Postmaster General to abstain from executing the law and
giving the credit thereby required, but submitted the matter in a
message to Congress. And the same Judiciary Committee of the Senate
reports thereupon, in which it says
"The President, in his message, expresses no opinion in relation
to the subject under consideration, nor does he recommend the
adoption of any measure whatever. He communicates the report of the
Postmaster General, the review of that report by the Solicitor of
the Treasury, and the remarks of the Postmaster General in answer
thereto, together with such vouchers as are referred to by them
respectively. That the committee has considered the documents
communicated and cannot discover any cause for changing its opinion
upon any of the principles advanced in their former report upon
this subject, nor the correctness of their application to this
case, and recommends the adoption of the resolution before
reported."
Thus, upon a second and full consideration of the subject, after
hearing and examining the objections of the Postmaster General to
the award of the Solicitor, the committee reports that the
Postmaster General ought to pay to the relators the amount of the
award.
The right of the relators to the benefit of the award ought now
to be considered as irreversibly established, and the question is
whether they have any, and what remedy?
The act required by the law to be done by the Postmaster General
is simply to credit the relators with the full amount of the award
of the Solicitor. This is a precise, definite act, purely
ministerial and about which the Postmaster General had no
discretion whatever.
Page 37 U. S. 614
The law upon its face shows the existence of accounts between
the relators and the Post Office Department. No money was required
to be paid, and none could have been drawn out of the Treasury
without further legislative provision if this credit should
overbalance the debit standing against the relators. But this was a
matter with which the Postmaster General had no concern. He was not
called upon to furnish the means of paying such balance, if any
should be found. He was simply required to give the credit. This
was not an official act in any other sense than being a transaction
in the department where the books and accounts were kept, and was
an official act in the same sense that an entry in the minutes of a
court, pursuant to an order of the court, is an official act. There
is no room for the exercise of any discretion, official or
otherwise; all that is shut out by the direct and positive command
of the law, and the act required to be done is in every just sense
a mere ministerial act.
And in this view of the case the question arises is the remedy
by mandamus the fit and appropriate remedy?
The common law, as it was in force in Maryland when the cession
was made, remained in force in this District. We must therefore
consider this writ as it was understood at the common law with
respect to its object and purpose, and varying only in the form
required by the different character of our government. It is a
writ, in England, issuing out of the King's Bench in the name of
the King, and is called a prerogative writ, but considered a writ
of right, and is directed to some person, corporation, or inferior
court requiring them to do some particular thing therein specified
which appertains to their office or duty and which is supposed to
be consonant to right and justice and where there is no other
adequate specific remedy. Such a writ and for such a purpose would
seem to be peculiarly appropriate to the present case. The right
claimed is just and established by positive law, the duty required
to be performed is clear and specific, and there is no other
adequate remedy.
The remedies suggested at the bar were, then, an application to
Congress, removal of the Postmaster General from office, and an
action against him for damages.
The first has been tried and failed. The second might not afford
any certain relief, for his successors might withhold the credit in
the same manner, and besides, such extraordinary measures are not
the remedies spoken of in the law which will supersede the right of
resorting to a mandamus, and it is seldom that a private action
at
Page 37 U. S. 615
law will afford an adequate remedy. If the denial of the right
be considered as a continuing injury, to be redressed by a series
of successive actions as long as the right is denied, it would
avail nothing, and never furnish a complete remedy. Or if the whole
amount of the award claimed should be considered the measure of
damages, it might and generally would be an inadequate remedy where
the damages were large. The language of this Court in the case of
Osborn v. United States
Bank, 9 Wheat. 844, is that the remedy by action in
such cases would have nothing real in it. It would be a remedy in
name only, and not in substance, especially where the amount of
damages is beyond the capacity of a party to pay.
That the proceeding on a mandamus is a "case" within the meaning
of the act of Congress has been too often recognized in this Court
to require any particular notice. It is an action or suit brought
in a court of justice, asserting a right, and is prosecuted
according to the forms of judicial proceedings.
The next inquiry is whether the court below had jurisdiction of
the case, and power to issue the mandamus.
This objection rests upon the decision of this Court in the
cases of
McIntire v.
Wood, 7 Cranch 504, and,
McClung v.
Silliman, 6 Wheat. 590. It is admitted that those
cases have decided that the circuit courts of the United States in
the several states have not authority to issue a mandamus against
an officer of the United States. And unless the circuit court in
the District of Columbia has larger powers in this respect, it had
not authority to issue a mandamus in the present case.
It becomes necessary therefore to examine with attention the
ground on which those cases rested. And it is to be observed that
although the question came up under the names of different parties,
it related to the same claim in both, and indeed it was before the
Court at another time, which is reported in
15 U. S. 2 Wheat.
369.
The question in the first case originated in the Circuit Court
of the United States in Ohio, and came to this Court on a
certificate of division of opinion. The second time it was an
original application to this Court for the mandamus. The third time
the application was to the state court, and was brought here by
writ of error under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary
Act.
By the first report of the case in 7 Cranch, it appears that the
application to the circuit court was for a mandamus to the register
of a land office in Ohio, commanding him to issue a final
certificate of
Page 37 U. S. 616
purchase for certain lands in that state, and the court, in
giving its judgment, said the power of the circuit courts to issue
the writ of mandamus is confined exclusively to those cases in
which it may be necessary to the exercise of their jurisdiction.
But it is added if the eleventh section of the Judiciary Act had
covered the whole ground of the Constitution, there would be much
ground for exercising this power in many cases wherein some
ministerial act is necessary to the completion of an individual
right arising under the laws of the United States, and then the
fourteenth section of the act would sanction the issuing of the
writ for such a purpose. But that, although the judicial power
under the Constitution extends to all cases arising under the laws
of the United States, the legislature has not thought proper to
delegate that power to the circuit courts except in certain
specified cases. The decision, then, turned exclusively upon the
point that Congress had not delegated to the circuit courts all the
judicial power that the Constitution would authorize, and admitting
what certainly cannot be denied, that the Constitution is broad
enough to warrant the vesting of such power in the circuit courts,
and if in those courts, it may be vested in any other inferior
courts, for the judicial power, says the Constitution, shall be
vested in one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as the
Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
It is not designated by the Court in the case of
McIntire v.
Wood in what respect there is a want of delegation to the
circuit courts of the power necessary to take cognizance of such a
case and issue the writ. It is said, however, that the power is
confined to certain specified cases, among which is not to be found
that of issuing a mandamus in such a case as was then before the
court. It is unnecessary to enter into a particular examination of
the limitation upon the power embraced in this eleventh section of
the Judiciary Act. There is manifestly some limitation. The circuit
courts have certainly not jurisdiction of all suits or cases of a
civil nature at common law and in equity. They are not courts of
general jurisdiction in all such cases, and an averment is
necessary bringing the case within one of the specified classes.
But the obvious inference from the case of
McIntire v.
Wood is that under the Constitution, the power to issue a
mandamus to an executive officer of the United States may be vested
in the inferior courts of the United States, and that it is the
appropriate writ, and proper to be employed, agreeably to the
principles and usages of law, to compel the performance of a
ministerial
Page 37 U. S. 617
act, necessary to the completion of an individual right arising
under the laws of the United States. And the case now before the
Court is precisely one of that description. And if the Circuit
Court of this District has the power to issue it, all objection
arising either from the character of the party, as an officer in
the Executive Department of the government, or from the nature of
the act commanded to be done, must be abandoned.
An application for a mandamus founded on the same claim was made
to this Court under the name of
McCluny v.
Silliman, as reported in 2 Wheat. 369, and the
application was refused on the authority of
Marbury v.
Madison, 1 Cranch 137, that this Court had no
original jurisdiction in such cases.
The case came up again under the name of
McCluny v.
Silliman, 6 Wheat. 598, on a writ of error to a
state court under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, and the
only question directly before the Court was whether a state court
had authority to issue a mandamus to an officer of the United
States, and this power was denied. MR. JUSTICE JOHNSON, who gave
the opinion and who had given the opinion of the Court in
McIntire v. Wood, alluded to that case and gave some
account of the application in that case and the grounds upon which
the Court decided it, and observed that the mandamus asked for in
that case was to perfect the same claim, and in point of fact was
between the same parties, and in answer to what had been urged at
the bar with respect to the character of the parties, said that
case did not turn upon that point, but that both the argument of
counsel and the decision of the Court show that the power to issue
the mandamus in that case was contended for as incident to the
judicial power of the United States, and that the reply to the
argument was that although it might be admitted that this
controlling power over its ministerial officers would follow from
vesting in its courts the whole judicial power of the United
States, the argument fails here since the legislature has only made
a partial delegation of its judicial powers to the circuit courts.
That all cases arising under the laws of the United States are not
per se among the cases comprised within the jurisdiction
of the circuit courts under the provisions of the eleventh
section.
It is, he says, not easy to conceive on what legal ground a
state tribunal can in any instance exercise the power of issuing a
mandamus to a register of a land office. The United States has not
thought proper to delegate that power to their own courts. But
Page 37 U. S. 618
when in the case of
Marbury v. Madison and
McIntire
v. Wood this Court decided against the exercise of that power,
the idea never presented itself to anyone that it was not within
the scope of the judicial power of the United States, although not
vested by law in the courts of the general government. And no one
will contend that it was among the reserved powers of the states
because not communicated by law to the courts of the United
States.
The result of these cases, then, clearly is that the authority
to issue the writ of mandamus to an officer of the United States
commanding him to perform a specific act required by a law of the
United States is within the scope of the judicial powers of the
United States under the Constitution. But that the whole of that
power has not been communicated by law to the circuit courts -- or
in other words that it was then a dormant power not yet called into
action and vested in those courts -- and that there is nothing
growing out of the official character of the party that will exempt
him from this writ if the act to be performed is purely
ministerial.
It must be admitted, under the doctrine of this Court in the
cases referred to, that unless the Circuit Court of this District
is vested with broader powers and jurisdiction in this respect than
is vested in the circuit courts of the United States in the several
states, then the mandamus in the present case was issued without
authority.
But in considering this question it must be borne in mind that
the only ground upon which the court placed its decision was that
the constitutional judicial powers on this subject had not been
imparted to those courts.
In the first place, the case of
Wheelwright v. Columbia
Insurance Co., 7 Wheat. 534, furnishes a very
strong, if not conclusive, inference that this Court did not
consider the Circuit Court of this District as standing on the same
footing with the circuit courts in the states, and impliedly
admitting that it had power to issue a mandamus in a case analogous
to the present. A mandamus in that case had been issued by the
Circuit Court of this District to compel the admission of the
defendants in error to the offices of directors in the Columbian
Insurance Company, and the case was brought before this Court by
writ of error, and the Court decided that a writ of error would
lie, and directed affidavits to be produced as to the value of the
matter in controversy. But it not appearing that it amounted to one
thousand dollars, the sum required to give this Court appellate
jurisdiction from the final judgments or decrees of
Page 37 U. S. 619
the Circuit Court of this District, the writ of error was
afterwards quashed.
It would seem to be a reasonable if not a necessary conclusion
that the want of a sufficient value of the matter in controversy
was the sole ground upon which the writ of error was quashed or
dismissed. If it had been on the ground that the court below had
not jurisdiction in the case, it can hardly be believed that the
Court would have directed affidavits to be produced of the value of
the matter in controversy. This would have been an act perfectly
nugatory and entirely unavailable if the matter in controversy had
been shown to be above the value of one thousand dollars. If the
want of jurisdiction in the circuit court had been the ground on
which the writ of error was quashed, the same course would have
been pursued as was done in the case of
Custis v.
Georgetown & Alexandria Turnpike Co., 6 Cranch
233, where the writ of error was quashed on the ground that the
court below had not cognizance of the matter.
But let us examine the Act of Congress of 27 of February, 1801,
concerning the District of Columbia, and by which the circuit court
is organized, and its powers and jurisdiction pointed out. And it
is proper, preliminarily, to remark that under the Constitution of
the United States and the cessions made by the States of Virginia
and Maryland, the exercise of exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever is given to Congress. And it is a sound principle that
in every well organized government the judicial power should be
coextensive with the legislative, so far at least as private rights
are to be enforced by judicial proceedings. There is in this
District no division of powers between the general and state
governments. Congress has the entire control over the District for
every purpose of government, and it is reasonable to suppose that
in organizing a judicial department here, all judicial power
necessary for the purposes of government would be vested in the
courts of justice. The circuit court here is the highest court of
original jurisdiction, and if the power to issue a mandamus in a
case like the present exists in any court, it is vested in that
court.
Keeping this consideration in view, let us look at the act of
Congress.
The first section declares that the laws of the State of
Maryland as they now exist shall be and continue in force in that
part of the District which was ceded by that state to the United
States, which is
Page 37 U. S. 620
the part lying on this side the Potomac, where the court was
sitting when the mandamus was issued. It was admitted on the
argument that at the date of this act, the common law of England
was in force in Maryland, and of course it remained and continued
in force in this part of the District, and that the power to issue
a mandamus in a proper case is a branch of the common law cannot be
doubted, and has been fully recognized as in practical operation in
that state in the case of
Runkle v. Winemiller, 4 Harris
& McHenry 448. That case came before the court on a motion to
show cause why a writ of mandamus should not issue, commanding the
defendants to restore the Rev. William Runkel into the place and
functions of minister of a certain congregation. The court
entertained the motion, and afterwards issued a peremptory
mandamus. And in the opinion delivered by the court on the motion,
reference is made to the English doctrine on the subject of
mandamus, and the court said that it is a prerogative writ, and
grantable when the public justice of the state is concerned, and
commands the execution of an act where otherwise justice would be
obstructed. 3 Bac.Ab. 527. It is denominated a prerogative writ
because, the King being the fountain of justice, it is interposed
by his authority transferred to the Court of King's Bench, to
prevent disorder from a failure of justice where the law has
established no specific remedy and where in justice and good
government there ought to be one. 3 Burr 1267. It is a writ of
right, and lies where there is a right to execute an office,
perform a service, or exercise a franchise, and a person is kept
out of possession and dispossessed of such right and has no other
specific legal remedy. 3 Burr 1266.
These and other cases where a mandamus has been considered in
England as a fit and appropriate remedy are referred to by the
general court, and it is then added that the position that this
Court is invested with similar powers is generally admitted, and
the decisions have invariably conformed to it, from whence, said
the court, the inference is plainly deducible that this Court may,
and of right ought, for the sake of justice, to interpose in a
summary way to supply a remedy where, for the want of a specific
one, there would otherwise be a failure of justice.
The theory of the British government and of the common law is
that the writ of mandamus is a prerogative writ, and is sometimes
called one of the flowers of the Crown, and is therefore confided
only to the King's Bench, where the King, at one period of
Page 37 U. S. 621
the judicial history of that country, is said to have sat in
person, and is presumed still to sit. And the power to issue this
writ is given to the King's Bench only, as having the general
supervising power over all inferior jurisdictions and officers, and
is coextensive with judicial sovereignty. And the same theory
prevails in our state governments, where the common law is adopted,
and governs in the administration of justice, and the power of
issuing this writ is generally confided to the highest court of
original jurisdiction. But it cannot be denied but this common law
principle may be modified by the legislature in any manner that may
be deemed proper and expedient. No doubt the British Parliament
might authorize the court of common pleas to issue this writ, or
that the legislature of the states where this doctrine prevails
might give the power to issue the writ to any judicial tribunal in
the state according to its pleasure, and in some of the states this
power is vested in other judicial tribunals than the highest court
of original jurisdiction. This is done in the State of Maryland,
subsequent however to 27f February, 1801. There can be no doubt but
that in the State of Maryland a writ of mandamus might be issued to
an executive officer commanding him to perform a ministerial act
required of him by law, and if it would lie in that state, there
can be no good reason why it should not lie in this District in
analogous cases. But the writ of mandamus, as it is used in the
courts of the United States other than the Circuit Court of this
District cannot in any just sense be said to be a prerogative writ
according to the principles of the common law.
The common law has not been adopted by the United States as a
system in the states generally, as has been done with respect to
this District. To consider the writ of mandamus, in use here as it
is in England, the issuing of it should be confined to this Court,
as it is there to the King's Bench. But under the Constitution, the
power to issue this as an original writ in the general sense of the
common law cannot be given to this Court, according to the decision
in
Marbury v. Madison.
Under the Judiciary Act, the power to issue this writ and the
purposes for which it may be issued in the courts of the United
States other than in this District, is given by the fourteenth
section of the act under the general delegation of power
"to issue all other writs not specially provided for by statute,
which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective
jurisdictions and agreeable to the
Page 37 U. S. 622
principles and usages of law."
And it is under this power that this Court issues the writ to
the circuit courts to compel them to proceed to a final judgment or
decree in a cause in order that we may exercise the jurisdiction of
review given by the law, and the same power is exercised by the
circuit courts over the district courts, where a writ of error or
appeal lies to the circuit court. But this power is not exercised,
as in England, by the King's Bench, as having a general supervising
power over inferior courts, but only for the purpose of bringing
the case to a final judgment or decree so that it may be reviewed.
The mandamus does not direct the inferior court how to proceed, but
only that it must proceed, according to its own judgment, to a
final determination; otherwise it cannot be reviewed in the
appellate court. So that it is in a special modified manner in
which the writ of mandamus is to be used in this Court and in the
circuit courts in the states; and does not stand on the same
footing, as in this District, under the general adoption of the
laws of Maryland, which included the common law, as altered or
modified on 27 February, 1801.
Thus far, the power of the circuit court to issue the writ of
mandamus has been considered as derived under the first section of
the act of 27 February, 1801. But the third and fifth sections are
to be taken into consideration in deciding this question. The third
section, so far as it relates to the present inquiry, declares:
"That there shall be a court in this District which shall be
called the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and the said
court and the judges thereof shall have all the powers by law
vested in the circuit courts and the judges of the circuit courts
of the United States."
And the fifth section declares:
"That the said court shall have cognizance of all cases in law
and equity between parties both or either of which shall be
resident or be found within the District."
Some criticisms have been made at the bar between the use of the
terms "power" and "cognizance" as employed in those sections. It is
not perceived how such distinction, if any exists, can affect the
construction of this law. That there is a distinction in some
respects cannot be doubted, and generally speaking the word "power"
is used in reference to the means employed in carrying jurisdiction
into execution. But it may well be doubted whether any marked
distinction is observed and kept up in our laws so as in any
measure to affect the construction of those laws. Power must
include jurisdiction, which is generally used in reference to the
exercise of
Page 37 U. S. 623
that power in courts of justice. But power as used in the
Constitution would seem to embrace both.
Thus all legislative power shall be vested in Congress. The
executive power shall be vested in a President. The judicial power
shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as
Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish, and this
judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising
under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and
treaties made or which shall be made under their authority &c.
This power must certainly embrace "jurisdiction" so far as that
term is applicable to the exercise of legislative or executive
power. And as relates to judicial power, the term jurisdiction is
not used until the distribution of those powers among the several
courts is pointed out and defined.
There is no such distinction in the two sections of the law in
the use of the terms "power" and "jurisdiction" as to make it
necessary to consider them separately. If there is any distinction,
the two sections, when taken together, embrace them both. The third
gives the power, and the fifth gives the jurisdiction on the cases
in which that power is to be exercised. By the fifth section, the
Court has cognizance of all actions or suits of a civil nature at
common law or in equity in which the United States shall be
plaintiff or complainant, and also of all cases in law and equity
between parties both or either of which shall be resident or be
found within the District. This latter limitation can only affect
the exercise of the jurisdiction, and cannot limit the subject
matter thereof. No court can, in the ordinary administration of
justice, in common law proceedings, exercise jurisdiction over a
party unless he shall voluntarily appear or is found within the
jurisdiction of the court so as to be served with process. Such
process cannot reach the party beyond the territorial jurisdiction
of the court. And besides, this is a personal privilege which may
be waived by appearance, and if advantage is to be taken of it, it
must be by plea or some other mode at an early stage in the cause.
No such objection appears to have been made to the jurisdiction of
the court in the present case. There was no want of jurisdiction,
then, as to the person, and as to the subject matter of
jurisdiction, it extends, according to the language of the act of
Congress, to all cases in law and equity. This, of course, means
cases of judicial cognizance.
That proceedings on an application to a court of justice for a
mandamus are judicial proceedings cannot admit of
Page 37 U. S. 624
a doubt, and that this is a case in law is equally clear. It is
the prosecution of a suit to enforce a right secured by a special
act of Congress requiring of the Postmaster General the performance
of a precise, definite, and specific act plainly enjoined by the
law. It cannot be denied but that Congress had the power to command
that act to be done, and the power to enforce the performance of
the act must rest somewhere or it will present a case which has
often been said to involve a monstrous absurdity in a well
organized government, that there should be no remedy, although a
clear and undeniable right should be shown to exist. And if the
remedy cannot be applied by the Circuit Court of this District, it
exists nowhere. But by the express terms of this act, the
jurisdiction of this circuit court extends to all cases in law,
&c. No more general language could have been used. An attempt
at specification would have weakened the force and extent of the
general words -- "all cases." Here, then, is the delegation to this
circuit court of the whole judicial power in this District, and in
the very language of the Constitution, which declares that the
judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising
under the laws of the United States, &c., and supplies what was
said by this Court in the cases of
McIntire v. Wood and in
McCluny v. Silliman to be wanting,
viz., that the
whole judicial power had not been delegated to the circuit courts
in the states, and which is expressed in the strong language of the
court that the idea never presented itself to anyone that it was
not within the scope of the judicial powers of the United States,
although not vested by law in the courts of the general
government.
And the power in the court below to exercise this jurisdiction,
we think, results irresistibly from the third section of the Act of
27 February, 1801, which declares that the said court and the
judges thereof shall have all the powers by law vested in the
circuit courts and the judges of the circuit courts of the United
States. The question here is what circuit courts are referred to.
By the Act of 13 February, 1801, the circuit courts established
under the Judiciary Act of 1789 were abolished, and no other
circuit courts were in existence except those established by the
act of 13 February, 1801. It was admitted by the Attorney General
on the argument that if the language of the law had been all the
powers now vested in the circuit courts, &c., reference would
have been made to the Act of 13 February, 1801, and the courts
thereby established. We think that would not have varied the
construction of the act.
Page 37 U. S. 625
The reference is to the powers by law vested in the circuit
courts. The question necessarily arises, what law? The question
admits of no other answer than that it must be some existing law by
which powers are vested, and not a law which had been repealed. And
there was no other law in force vesting powers in circuit courts
except the law of 13 February, 1801. And the repeal of this law
fifteen months afterwards, and after the court in this District had
been organized and gone into operation under the Act of 27
February, 1801, could not in any manner affect that law any further
than was provided by the repealing act. To what law was the Circuit
Court of this District to look for the powers vested in the circuit
courts of the United States, by which the court was to be governed,
during the time the Act of 13 February was in force? Certainly to
none other than that act. And whether the time was longer or
shorter before that law was repealed could make no difference.
It was not an uncommon course of legislation in the states at an
early day to adopt, by reference British statutes, and this has
been the course of legislation by Congress in many instances where
state practice and state process has been adopted. And such
adoption has always been considered as referring to the law
existing at the time of adoption, and no subsequent legislation has
ever been supposed to affect it. And such must necessarily be the
effect and operation of such adoption. No other rule would furnish
any certainty as to what was the law, and would be adopting
prospectively all changes that might be made in the law. And this
has been the light in which this Court has viewed such legislation.
In the case of
Cathcart v.
Robinson, 5 Pet. 280, the Court, in speaking of the
adoption of certain English statutes said
"By adopting them, they become our own as entirely as if they
had been enacted by the legislature. We are then to construe this
third section of the Act of 27 February, 1801, as if the eleventh
section of the Act of 13 February, 1801, had been incorporated at
full length, and by this section it is declared that the circuit
courts shall have cognizance of all cases in law or equity arising
under the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties
made or which shall be made under their authority. which are the
very words of the Constitution and which is, of course, a
delegation of the whole judicial power in cases arising under the
Constitution and laws, &c., which meets and supplies the
precise want of delegation of power which prevented the
exercise
Page 37 U. S. 626
of jurisdiction in the cases of
McIntire v. Wood and
McCluny v. Silliman, and must, on the principles which
governed the decision of the Court in those cases, be sufficient to
vest the power in the Circuit Court of this District."
The judgment of the court below is accordingly
Affirmed with costs and the cause remanded for further
proceedings.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY:
As this case has attracted some share of the public attention
and a diversity of opinion exists on the bench, it is proper that I
should state the grounds upon which I dissent from the judgment
pronounced by the Court. There is no controversy about the facts,
and as they have been already sufficiently stated, I need not
repeat them.
Upon some of the points much argued at the bar there is no
difference of opinion in the Court. Indeed I can hardly understand
how so many grave questions of constitutional power have been
introduced into the discussion of a case like this and so earnestly
debated on both sides. The office of Postmaster General is not
created by the Constitution, nor are its powers or duties marked
out by that instrument. The office was created by act of Congress,
and wherever Congress creates such an office as that of Postmaster
General, by law, it may unquestionably by law limit its powers and
regulate its proceedings, and may subject it to any supervision or
control, executive or judicial, which the wisdom of the legislature
may deem right. There can therefore be no question about the
constitutional powers of the executive or judiciary in this case.
The controversy depends simply upon the construction of an act of
Congress. The Circuit Court for the District of Columbia was
organized by the Act of February 27, 1801, which defines its powers
and jurisdiction, and if that law, by its true construction,
confers upon the court the power it has in this instance exercised,
then the judgment must be affirmed.
There is another point on which there is no difference of
opinion in the Court. We all agree that by the Act of July 2, 1836,
it was the duty of the Postmaster General to credit Stockton and
Stokes with the amount awarded by the Solicitor of the Treasury,
that no discretionary power in relation to the award, was given to
the Postmaster General, and that the duty enjoined upon him was
merely ministerial.
Page 37 U. S. 627
These principles being agreed on, it follows that this was a
proper case for a mandamus, provided Congress has conferred on the
Circuit Court for the District of Columbia the prerogative,
jurisdiction, and powers exercised by the Court of King's Bench in
England, for Stockton and Stokes are entitled to have the credit
entered in the manner directed by the act of Congress, and they
have no other specific means provided by law for compelling the
performance of this duty. In such a case, the Court of King's Bench
in England would undoubtedly issue the writ of mandamus to such an
officer commanding him to enter the credit. Has Congress conferred
similar jurisdiction and powers upon the Circuit Court for this
District? This is the only question in the case. The majority of my
brethren think that this jurisdiction and power has been conferred,
and they have given their reasons for their opinion. I, with two of
my brethren, think otherwise, and with the utmost respect for the
opinion of the majority of this Court, I proceed to show the
grounds on which I dissent from their judgment.
It has been decided in this Court that the circuit courts of the
United States, out of this District, have not the power to issue
the writ of mandamus to an officer of the general government
commanding him to do a ministerial act. The question has been twice
before the Supreme Court, and upon both occasions was fully argued
and deliberately considered. The first case was that of
McIntyre v.
Wood, 7 Cranch 504, decided in 1813. It was again
brought up in 1821 in the case of
McCluny v.
Silliman, 6 Wheat. 598, when the former decision
was reexamined and affirmed. And it is worthy of remark that
although the decision first mentioned was made twenty-five years
ago, yet Congress has not altered the law or enlarged the
jurisdiction of the circuit courts in this respect, thereby showing
that it has not been deemed advisable by the legislature to confer
upon them the jurisdiction over the officers of the general
government which is claimed by the Circuit Court for this
District.
As no reason of policy or public convenience can be assigned for
giving to the circuit court here a jurisdiction on this subject
which has been denied to the other circuit courts, those who
maintain that it has been given ought to show us words which
distinctly give it or from which it can plainly be inferred. When
Congress intended to confer this jurisdiction on the Supreme Court
by the Act of 1789, ch. 20, they used language which nobody could
misunderstand. In that law they declared that the Supreme Court
should have power
Page 37 U. S. 628
to issue
"writs of mandamus in cases warranted by the principles and
usages of law to any courts appointed or persons holding office
under the authority of the United States."
Here are plain words. But no such words of grant are to be found
in the Act of February 27, 1801, which established the Circuit
Court of the District of Columbia and defined its powers and
jurisdiction. Indeed, those who insist that the power is given seem
to have much difficulty in fixing upon the particular clauses of
the law which confers it. Sometimes it is said to be derived from
one section of the act and then from another. At one time it is
said to be found in the first section, at another in the third
section, and then in the fifth section, and sometimes it is said to
be equally discoverable in all of them. The power is certainly
nowhere given in direct and positive terms, and the difficulty in
pointing out the particular clause from which the power is plainly
to be inferred is strong proof that Congress never intended to
confer it. For if the legislature wished to vest this power in the
Circuit Court for this District while they denied it to the circuit
courts sitting in the states, we can hardly believe that dark and
ambiguous language would have been selected to convey their
meaning; words would have been found in the law equally plain with
those above quoted, which conferred the power on the supreme
court.
But, let us examine the sections which are supposed to give this
power to this circuit court.
1st. It is said to be given by the first section. This section
declares that the laws of Maryland as they then existed should be
in force in that part of the District ceded by Maryland and the
laws of Virginia in that part of the District ceded by Virginia. By
this section, the common law in civil and criminal cases, as it
existed in Maryland at the date of this act of Congress (February
27, 1801) became the law of the District on the Maryland side of
the Potomac, and it is argued that this circuit court being a court
of general jurisdiction in cases at common law and the highest
court of original jurisdiction in the District, the right to issue
the writ of mandamus is incident to its common law powers as a part
of the laws of Maryland, and distinguishes it in this respect from
the circuit courts for the states.
The argument if founded in a mistake as to the nature and
character of the writ of mandamus as known to the English law and
as
Page 37 U. S. 629
used and practiced in Maryland at the date of the act of
Congress in question.
The power to issue the writ of mandamus to an officer of the
government commanding him to do a ministerial act does not, by the
common law of England or by the laws of Maryland as they existed at
the time of the cession, belong to any court whose jurisdiction was
limited to a particular section of country and was not coextensive
with the sovereignty which established the court. It may, without
doubt, be conferred on such courts by statute, as was done in
Maryland in 1806, after the cession of the District. But by the
principles of the common law and the laws of Maryland as they
existed at the time of the cession, no court had a right to issue
the prerogative writ of mandamus unless it was a court in which the
judicial sovereignty was supposed to reside and which exercised a
general superintendence over the inferior tribunals and persons
throughout the nation or state.
In England this writ can be issued by the King's Bench only. It
cannot be issued by the court of common pleas or any other court
known to the English law except the Court of King's Bench. And the
peculiar character and constitution of that court, from which it
derives this high power, are so well known and familiar to every
lawyer that it is scarcely necessary to cite authorities on the
subject. Its peculiar powers are clearly stated in 3 Black.Com. 42
in the following words:
"The jurisdiction of this court is very high and transcendant.
It keeps all inferior jurisdictions within the bounds of their
authority, and may either remove their proceedings to be determined
here or prohibit their progress below. It superintends all civil
corporations in the Kingdom. It commands magistrates and others to
do what their duty requires in every case where there is no other
specific remedy. It protects the liberty of the subject by speedy
and summary interposition,"
&c. It is from this "high and transcendant" jurisdiction
that the Court of King's Bench derives the power to issue the writ
of mandamus, as appears from the same volume of Blackstone's
Commentaries 110. "The writ of mandamus," says the learned
commentator,
"is in general a command issuing in the King's name from the
Court of King's Bench, and directed to any person, corporation or
inferior court of judicature, within the King's dominions requiring
them to do some particular thing therein specified which appertains
to their office and duty and which the Court of King's Bench has
previously determined or
Page 37 U. S. 630
at least supposes to be consonant to right and justice. It is a
high prerogative writ of a most extensively remedial nature."
And Mr. Justice Butler, in his introduction to the law relative
to trials at
nisi prius, also places the right to issue
this writ upon the peculiar and high powers of the Court of King's
Bench. In page 195, he says:
"The writ of mandamus is a prerogative writ issuing out of the
Court of King's Bench (as that court has a general superintendency
over all inferior jurisdictions and persons), and is the proper
remedy to enforce obedience to acts of Parliament and to the King's
charter, and in such a case is demandable of right."
Indeed, in all of the authorities it is uniformly called a
"prerogative writ" in order to distinguish it from the ordinary
process which belongs to courts of justice, and it was not
originally considered as a judicial proceeding, but was exercised
as a prerogative power. In the case of
Audley v. Jay,
Popham 176, Doddridge, Justice, said:
"This Court hath power not only in judicial things, but also in
some things which are extrajudicial. The mayor and commonalty of
Coventry displaced one of the aldermen, and he was restored, and
this thing is peculiar to this court and is one of the flowers of
it."
These peculiar powers were possessed by the Court of King's
Bench because the King originally sat there in person and aided in
the administration of justice. According to the theory of the
English Constitution, the King is the fountain of justice, and
where the laws did not afford a remedy and enable the individual to
obtain his right, by the regular forms of judicial proceedings, the
prerogative powers of the sovereign were brought in aid of the
ordinary judicial powers of the court, and the mandamus was issued
in his name to enforce the execution of the law. And although the
King has long since ceased to sit there in person, yet the
sovereign is still there in construction of law so far as to enable
the court to exercise its prerogative powers in his name, and hence
its powers to issue the writ of mandamus, the nature of which
Justice Doddridge so forcibly describes by calling it
extrajudicial, and one of the flowers of the King's Bench. It is
therefore evident that by the principles of the common law, this
power would not be incident to any court which did not possess the
general superintending power of the Court of King's Bench, in which
the sovereignty might by construction of law be supposed to sit and
to exert there its prerogative powers in aid of the court in order
that a right might not be without a remedy.
The English common law was adopted in the Colony of
Maryland,
Page 37 U. S. 631
and the courts of the province formed on the same principles.
The proprietary government established what was called the
provincial court, in which it appears that, in imitation of what
had been done in England, the lord proprietary, in an early period
of the colony, sat in person.
* This court
possessed the same powers in the province that belonged to the
Court of King's Bench in England. Its jurisdiction was coextensive
with the dominions of the lord proprietary, and it exercised a
general superintendence over all inferior tribunals and persons in
the province, and consequently possessed the exclusive power of
issuing the writ of mandamus.
When the revolution of 1776 took place, the same system of
jurisprudence was adopted, and the fifty-sixth article of the
Constitution of Maryland provided
"That three persons of integrity and sound judgment in the law
be appointed judges of the court now called the Provincial Court,
and that the same court be hereafter called and known by the name
of the General Court."
No further description of the jurisdiction and powers of the
General Court is given. It therefore, in the new order of things,
was clothed with the same powers and jurisdiction that had belonged
to the Provincial Court before the revolution. In other words, the
General Court was, in the State of Maryland precisely what the
Court of King's Bench was in England. Afterwards, and before the
cession of the District of Columbia to the United States, county
courts were established in Maryland corresponding in character with
what are called circuit courts in most of the states. These courts
possessed general jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in the
respective counties, subject, however, to the superintending power
of the General Court, which exercised over them the same sort of
jurisdiction which the Court of King's Bench exercises over
inferior tribunals. This was the system of jurisprudence in
Maryland at the time when the act of Congress adopted the laws of
the state for the District, and the power which the Maryland courts
then possessed, by virtue of those laws, in relation to the writ of
mandamus, are set forth in the case of
Runkle v.
Winemiller, 4 Harris & McHenry 449. Chief Justice Chase,
in delivering the opinion of the court in that case, after
describing the character and principles of the writ of mandamus,
says:
"The Court
Page 37 U. S. 632
of King's Bench having a superintending power over inferior
courts of jurisdiction, may and of right ought to interfere to
supply a remedy when the ordinary forms of proceeding are
inadequate to the attainment of justice in matters of public
concern. 3 Bac.Abr. 529, 530. The position that this court is
invested with similar powers is generally admitted, and the
decisions have invariably conformed to it, from whence the
inference is plainly deducible that this court may, and of right
ought for the sake of justice, to interpose in a summary way to
supply a remedy where, for the want of a specific one, there would
otherwise be a failure of justice."
This case was decided in 1799, in the General Court, and it
shows most evidently that the power of issuing the writ of mandamus
was confined to that court, and was derived from its King's Bench
powers of superintending inferior courts and jurisdictions in the
execution of the law, and that this power was not possessed by any
other court known to the laws of Maryland. And so well and clearly
was this understood to be the law of the state that when the
General Court was afterwards abolished by an alteration in the
Constitution and county courts established as the highest courts of
original jurisdiction, no one supposed that the prerogative powers
of the General Court were incidental to their general jurisdiction
over cases at common law, and a statute was passed in 1806 to
confer this jurisdiction upon them. This act declares
"That the county courts shall have, use, and exercise, in their
respective counties, all and singular the powers, authorities, and
jurisdictions which the General Court, at the time of the abolition
thereof, might or could have exercised in cases of writs of
mandamus."
The adoption of the laws of Maryland therefore does not give to
the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia the power to issue
the writ of mandamus as an incident to its general jurisdiction
over cases at common law. It has none of what Blackstone calls the
"high and transcendent" jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench
in England and of the General Court in Maryland. It is not superior
to all the other courts of the United States of original
jurisdiction throughout the Union; it is not authorized to
superintend them, and "keep them within the bounds of their
authority;" it does not "superintend all civil incorporations"
established by the United States, nor "command magistrates" and
other officers of the United States in every quarter of the country
"to do what their duty requires in every case where there is no
other specific remedy." Its jurisdiction is confined to the narrow
limits of the District, and the
Page 37 U. S. 633
jurisdiction which it derives from the adoption of the laws of
Maryland must be measured by that of the county courts of the
state, which the court for this District in every respect
resembles. These courts had no power to issue the writ of mandamus
at the time when the laws of Maryland were adopted by Congress, and
when the county courts afterwards became, by the abolition of the
General Court, the highest courts of original jurisdiction, still,
by the laws of that state, they could not issue this writ until the
power to do so was conferred on them by statute. As this act of
assembly passed five years after Congress assumed jurisdiction over
the District, it forms no part of the laws adopted by the act of
Congress. I cannot, therefore, see any ground whatever for deriving
the authority to issue this writ of mandamus from the first section
of the act of Congress, adopting the laws of Maryland as they then
existed.
2. But it is insisted that if the power to issue the writs of
mandamus is not incidentally granted to this circuit court by the
first section of the act of February 27, 1831, which adopts the
laws of Maryland, yet it is directly and positively given by the
fifth section, which declares that the court shall have cognizance
of "all cases in law and equity." It is said that a case proper for
a mandamus is a case at law, and that the words above mentioned
therefore, authorize the circuit court to take cognizance of
it.
The cases of
Wood v. McIntire and
McCluny v.
Silliman, hereinbefore mentioned, appear to me to be decisive
against this proposition. These cases decided that the circuit
courts out of this District have not the power now in question. It
is true that the eleventh section of the Act of 1789, ch. 20, which
prescribes the jurisdiction of the circuit courts out of this
District, does not use the very same words that are used in the
fifth section of the act now under consideration. The eleventh
section of the act of 1789 declares that the circuit courts shall
have cognizance of "all suits of a civil nature at common law, or
in equity," &c. But these words "all suits of a civil nature at
common law" mean the same thing as the words "all cases at law,"
which are used in the Act of February 27, 1801, and MR. JUSTICE
STORY, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, Abr. 608, 609, in
commenting on the meaning of the words, "cases at law and equity,"
as used in the Constitution, says:
"A case, then, in the sense of this clause of the Constitution,
arises where some subject touching the Constitution, laws, or
treaties of the United States is submitted to the courts by a party
who asserts his rights in the
Page 37 U. S. 634
form prescribed by law. In other words, a case is a suit in law
or equity instituted according to the regular course of judicial
proceedings, and when it involves any question arising under the
Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, it is within
the judicial power confided to the Union."
Now if a case at law means the same thing as a suit at law, and
the latter words do not give jurisdiction to the circuit courts out
of this District to issue the writ of mandamus to an officer of the
general government, how can words which are admitted to mean the
same thing give the power to the circuit court within this
District? How can the cognizance of "cases at law," in the act of
Congress before us, be construed to confer this jurisdiction when
it has been settled by two decisions of this Court that words of
the same meaning do not give it to the other circuit courts? We
cannot give this construction to the Act of February 27, 1801,
without giving a judgment inconsistent with the decisions of this
Court in the two cases above mentioned, and I cannot agree either
to overrule these cases or to give a judgment inconsistent with
them.
But it is argued that if the 1st section of the act of Congress
does not give the circuit court this jurisdiction, and if the 5th
section does not give it, yet it may be derived from these two
sections taken together. The argument, I understand, is this:
The General Court of Maryland possessed the power to issue the
writ of mandamus in a case of this description, and inasmuch as
that court possessed this power, the cases which authorized the
parties to demand it were "cases at law" by the laws of that state,
and consequently the jurisdiction is conferred on the circuit court
in similar cases by the adoption of the laws of Maryland in the
first section and the words in the fifth which give the circuit
court cognizance of "cases at law."
The fallacy of this argument consists in assuming that the
General Court of Maryland had jurisdiction to issue the writ of
mandamus because it was "a case at law" whenever the party took the
proper steps to show himself entitled to it. The reverse of this
proposition is the true one. A "case at law," as I have already
shown, means the same thing as a "suit," and the General Court had
authority to issue the writ of mandamus not because the proceeding
was a case or suit at law, but because no case or suit at law would
afford a remedy to the party. This is the basis upon which rests
the power of the Court of King's Bench in England, and upon which
rested the power of the General Court in Maryland before that court
was abolished.
Page 37 U. S. 635
These courts, by virtue of their prerogative powers, interposed
"to supply a remedy in a summary way," where no suit or action
known to the law would afford one to the party for the wrong he had
sustained. It is not a suit in form or substance, and never has
been so considered in England or in Maryland. For if it had been
considered in Maryland as a suit at law, Chief Justice Chase, in
the case of
Runkel v. Winemiller, hereinbefore referred
to, would hardly have put his decision on the prerogative powers of
the General Court in the manner hereinbefore stated. Since the
statute of 9 Anne, authorizing pleadings in proceedings by
mandamus, it has been held that such a proceeding is in the nature
of an action and that a writ of error will lie upon the judgment of
the court awarding a peremptory mandamus. But it never has been
said in any book of authority that this prerogative process is "an
action," or "a suit," or "a case" at law, and never suggested that
any court not clothed with the prerogative powers of the King's
Bench could issue the process according to the principles of the
common law unless the power to do so had been conferred by
statute.
4. But it is said that if the jurisdiction exercised in this
case by the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia cannot be
maintained upon any of the grounds hereinbefore examined, it may
yet be supported on the 3d section of the Act of February 27, 1801.
This section, among other things, provides that this circuit "court
and the judges thereof shall have all the powers by law vested in
the circuit courts, and the judges of the circuit courts of the
United States." And it is insisted that as the Act of February 13,
1801, was at that time in force, the powers of this circuit court
are to be measured by that act, although it has since been
repealed; that the circuit courts established by the Act of
February 13, 1801, did possess the power in question, and
consequently that the Circuit Court for this District now possesses
it, and may lawfully exercise it.
There are two answers to this argument, either of which is in my
judgment sufficient.
In the first place, there are no words in the Act of February
27, 1801, which refer particularly to the powers given to the
circuit courts by the Act of February 13, 1801, as the rule by
which the powers of the Circuit Court for this District are to be
measured. The obvious meaning of the words above quoted is that the
powers of this circuit court shall be regulated by the existing
powers of the circuit courts as generally established, so that the
powers of this circuit
Page 37 U. S. 636
court would be enlarged or diminished, from time to time, as
Congress might enlarge or diminish the powers of the circuit courts
in its general system. And when the law of February 13, 1801, was
afterwards repealed and the act of 1789 reenacted, the powers of
this circuit court were regulated by the powers conferred on the
circuit courts by the last mentioned law. It was the intention of
Congress to establish uniformity in this respect, and they have
used language which, in my opinion, makes that intention evident.
The Circuit Court for this District cannot, therefore, refer for
its "powers" to the act of February 13, 1801, since that act has
been repealed.
In the second place, if the powers of the Circuit Court for the
District of Columbia are still to be regulated by the law which was
repealed as long ago as 1802, yet it will make no difference in the
result of the argument. Much has been said about the meaning of the
words "powers" and "cognizance" as used in these acts of Congress.
These words are no doubt generally used in reference to courts of
justice as meaning the same thing, and I have frequently so used
them in expressing my opinion in this case. But it is manifest that
they are not so used in the acts of Congress establishing the
judicial system of the United States, and that the word "powers" is
employed to denote the process, the means, the modes of proceedings
which the courts are authorized to use in exercising their
jurisdiction in the cases specially enumerated in the law as
committed to their "cognizance."
Thus in the act of 1789, ch. 20, the 11th section specifically
enumerates the cases or subject matter of which the circuit courts
shall have "cognizance," and subsequent sections under the name of
"powers" describe the process, the means which the courts may
employ in exercising their jurisdiction in the cases specified. For
example, section 14 gives them the "power" to issue the writs
"necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions," and
names particularly some of the writs which they shall have the
"power" to issue; section 15 gives them the "power" to compel
parties to produce their books, &c.; section 17 gives them the
"power" to grant new trials, to administer oaths, to punish
contempts, and to establish rules of court. The same distinction
between "powers" and jurisdiction or "cognizance" is preserved in
the Act of February 13, 1801. The 10th section of this act gives
the circuit courts thereby established all the "powers" before
vested in the circuit courts of the United States unless where
otherwise provided by that law, and the next following section (the
11th) enumerates specifically the
Page 37 U. S. 637
cases or controversies of which they shall have "cognizance."
And so also in the Act of February 27, 1801, establishing the
Circuit Court for this District, the same distinction is continued,
and the 3d section (the one now under consideration) gives the
court "all the powers by law vested in the circuit courts," while
the 5th section enumerates particularly the matters and
controversies of which it shall have "cognizance" -- that is to
say, over which it shall exercise jurisdiction by the means and the
"powers" given to it for that purpose by this same act of
Congress.
With these several laws before us, in each of which the same
terms have evidently been always used in the same sense, it appears
to me impossible to doubt the meaning which Congress intended to
affix to them. If they had used the word "powers" and the word
"cognizance," as meaning the same thing, would they, in the 10th
section of the Act of February 13, 1801, have given jurisdiction in
general terms under the name of "powers" to the courts thereby
established, and then have immediately followed it up with a
specification of the cases of which it should take "cognizance,"
and if such an unusual mode of legislation had been adopted in this
law from inadvertence or mistake, would it have been adhered to and
repeated in the Act of February 27, 1801? It is hardly respectful
to the legislative body for this Court to say so. It is clear that
the word "powers" must have been constantly used in these laws in
the sense I have already stated, and if the 3d section of the last
mentioned act is to be construed as referring particularly to the
Act of February 13, 1801, it will not affect the present
controversy. For we find the "powers" of those circuit courts given
by the 10th section, and they are there given by referring as
generally to the "powers" conferred on the circuit courts by
preceding laws, so that after all we are still carried back to the
act of 1789 in order to learn the powers of the circuit courts
established by the Act of February 13, 1801, and consequently we
are also to learn from that law the "powers" of the Circuit Court
for this District. And upon turning to the act of 1789, we find
there the power given to the Supreme Court to issue the writ of
mandamus "to persons holding office under the authority of the
United States," but we find no such power given to the circuit
courts. On the contrary, it has been decided as hereinbefore
stated, that under the act of 1789, they are not authorized to
issue the process in question. The 3d section of the Act of
February 27, 1801, will not, therefore, sustain the jurisdiction
exercised in this case by the circuit court.
Page 37 U. S. 638
But the principal effort on the part of the relators in this
branch of the argument is to give to this third section such a
construction as will confer on this circuit court a jurisdiction
coextensive with that given to the circuit courts by the eleventh
section of the Act of February 13, 1801. In other words, they
propose to expound the Act of February 27 as if this section of the
Act of February 13 was inserted in it. The eleventh section of the
act referred to enumerates and specifies particularly the cases of
which the circuit courts thereby established had "cognizance," and
the relators insist that jurisdiction in all the cases mentioned in
that section is also conferred on the Circuit Court for this
District by reason of the provision in the third section of the Act
of February 27, above mentioned. And they contend that the
aforesaid eleventh section gave to the circuit courts established
by that law jurisdiction to issue the writ in question, and that
the Circuit Court for this District therefore possesses the same
jurisdiction, even although it is not given by the fifth section of
the act establishing it. The object of this argument is to extend
the jurisdiction of this circuit court beyond the limits marked out
for it by the fifth section of the act which created it, provided
the eleventh section of the Act of February 13 shall be construed
to have given a broader jurisdiction.
Now it appears to me that when we find the eleventh section of
the Act of February 13 enumerating and specifying the cases of
which the circuit courts out of this District should have
"cognizance," and the fifth section of the Act of February 27,
enumerating and specifying the cases of which the circuit court
within this District should have "cognizance;" if there is found to
be any substantial difference in the jurisdictions thus specified
and defined in these two laws, the just and natural inference is
that the legislature intended that the jurisdiction of the courts
should be different and that they did not intend to give to the
Circuit Court for this District the same jurisdiction that had been
given to the others. This would be the legitimate inference in
comparing any laws establishing different courts, and the
conclusion is irresistible in this case, where the two laws were
passed within a few days of each other, and both must have been
before the legislature at the same time. It would be contrary to
the soundest rules for the construction of statutes in such a case
to enlarge the jurisdiction of this circuit court beyond the limits
of the fifth section by resorting to such general words as those
contained in the third, and to words, too, which much more
Page 37 U. S. 639
appropriately apply to its process, to its modes of proceeding,
and to other "powers" of the court, and which certainly have no
necessary connection with the cases of which the court is
authorized to take "cognizance."
I do not, however, mean to say that the eleventh section of the
Act of February 13, conferred on the circuit courts which it
established the power to issue the writ of mandamus in a case like
the present one. I think it did not, and that a careful analysis of
its provisions would show that it did not, especially when taken in
connection with the provisions of the act of 1789, which had
expressly conferred that power on the Supreme Court. But it is
unnecessary to pursue the argument on this point, because no just
rule of construction can authorize us to engraft the provisions of
this section upon the Act of February 27 so as to give to the
Circuit Court for the District of Columbia a wider jurisdiction
than that contemplated by the fifth section of the last mentioned
act.
Upon a view of the whole case, therefore, I cannot find the
power which the circuit court has exercised either in the first
section, or the third section, or the fifth section, and it is
difficult to believe that Congress meant to have given this high
prerogative power in so many places and yet, in every one of them
have left it, at best, so ambiguous and doubtful. And if we now
sanction its exercise, we shall give to the court, by remote
inferences and implications, a delicate and important power which I
feel persuaded Congress never intended to entrust to its hands.
Nor do I see any reason of policy that should induce this Court
to infer such an intention on the part of the legislature where the
words of the law evidently do not require it. It must be admitted
that Congress have denied this power to the circuit courts out of
this District. Why should it be denied to them, and yet be
entrusted to the court within this District? There are officers of
the general government in all of the states who are required by the
laws of the United States to do acts which are merely ministerial
and in which the private rights of individuals are concerned. There
are collectors and other officers of the revenue who are required
to do certain ministerial acts in giving clearances to vessels or
in admitting them to entry or to registry. There are also registers
and receivers of the land offices who are in like manner required
by law to do mere ministerial acts in which the private rights of
individuals are involved. Is there any reason of policy that
should
Page 37 U. S. 640
lead us to suppose that Congress would deny the writ of mandamus
to those who have such rights in the states and give it to those
who have rights in this District? There would be no equal justice
in such legislation, and no good reason of policy or convenience
can be assigned for such a distinction.
The case of
Columbian Insurance Company v.
Wheelwright, 7 Wheat. 534, has been relied on as
sanctioning the exercise of the jurisdiction in question, and it is
said that this Court, in determining that a writ of error would lie
from the decision of the Circuit Court of this District awarding
peremptory mandamus have impliedly decided that the circuit court
had jurisdiction to issue the process. I confess I cannot see the
force of this argument. The 8th section of the Act of February 27,
1801, provides
"That any final judgment, order, or decree in said circuit court
wherein the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, shall exceed the
value of one hundred dollars may be reexamined and reversed or
affirmed in the Supreme Court of the United States by writ of error
or appeal, which shall be prosecuted in the same manner, under the
same regulations, and the same proceedings shall be had therein as
is or shall be provided in the case of writs of error or judgments,
or appeals upon orders or decrees rendered in the Circuit Court of
the United States."
Now the order for a peremptory mandamus in the case cited, as
well as in the one now before the Court, was certainly "a final
judgment" of the circuit court. It decided that they had
jurisdiction to issue the mandamus and that the case before them
was a proper one for the exercise of this jurisdiction. Being the
"final judgment" of the circuit court, it was liable to be
reexamined in this Court by writ of error, and to be reversed if
upon such reexamination it was found that the circuit court had
committed an error either in assuming a jurisdiction which did not
belong to it or by mistaking the rights of the parties if it had
jurisdiction to issue the mandamus. In the case of
Custis v.
Georgetown & Alexandria Turnpike Company, 6
Cranch 233, the Supreme Court sustained the writ of error and
reversed the judgment of the Circuit Court of this District
quashing an inquisition returned to the clerk, and this was done
upon the ground that the circuit court had exercised a jurisdiction
which did not belong to it. There are a multitude of cases where
this Court have entertained a writ of error for the purpose of
reversing the judgment of the court below upon the ground that the
circuit court had not jurisdiction of the case for the
Page 37 U. S. 641
want of the proper averments in relation to the citizenship of
the parties.
It is certainly error in a circuit court to assume a
jurisdiction which has not been conferred on it by law. And it
would seem to be a strange limitation on the appellate powers of
this Court if it were restrained from correcting the judgment of a
circuit court when it committed this error. If such were the case,
then an error committed by a circuit court in relation to the legal
rights of the parties before it could not be examined into and
corrected in this Court if it happened to be associated with the
additional error of having assumed a jurisdiction which the law had
not given. Such, I think, cannot be the legitimate construction of
the section above quoted. And if the circuit court mistakes its
jurisdiction either in respect to the persons, or the subject
matter or the process, or the mode of proceeding, the mistake may
be corrected here by a writ of error from its final judgment or by
appeal in cases of equity or admiralty jurisdiction. And whether
the final judgment is pronounced in a summary or other proceeding,
if it be in a case in which the circuit court had not jurisdiction,
its judgment may be reexamined here and the error corrected by this
Court. The decision of this Court therefore, in the case of
Columbian Insurance Company v. Wheelwright, that a writ of
error would lie from the judgment of the Circuit Court of the
District of Columbia awarding a peremptory mandamus is by no means
a decision that the court below had jurisdiction to issue it.
In fine, every view which I have been able to take of this
subject leads me to conclude that the circuit court had not the
power to issue a writ of mandamus in the case before us. And
although I am ready to acknowledge the respect and confidence which
is justly due to the decision of the majority of this Court, and am
fully sensible of the learning and force with which their judgment
is sustained by the learned judge who delivered the opinion of the
Court, I must yet, for the reasons above stated, dissent from it. I
think that the circuit court had not by law the right to issue this
mandamus, and that the judgment they have given ought to be
reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BARBOUR:
In this case I have no doubt but that Congress have the
constitutional power to give to the federal judiciary, including
the Circuit Court of this District, authority to issue the writ of
mandamus to the
Page 37 U. S. 642
Postmaster General, to compel him to perform any ministerial
duty devolved on him by law.
I have no doubt that the act which in this case was required to
be done by the Postmaster General is such an one as might properly
be enforced by the writ of mandamus if the Circuit Court of this
District had authority by law to issue it.
But the question is whether that court is invested with this
authority by law. I am of opinion that it is not, and I will state
the reasons which have brought me to that conclusion.
It was decided by this Court in the case of
McIntire
v. Wood, 7 Cranch 504, upon a certificate of
division from the Circuit Court of Ohio, that that court did not
possess the power to issue a writ of mandamus to the register of a
land office commanding him to issue a final certificate of purchase
to the plaintiff for certain lands in the State of Ohio.
The principle of this case was approved and the same point
affirmed in the case of
McCluny v.
Silliman, 6 Wheat. 598.
In the views, then, which I am about to present, I shall set out
with the adjudged and admitted proposition that no other circuit
courts of the United States have power to issue the writ of
mandamus. And then the whole question is resolved into the single
inquiry whether the Circuit Court of this District has power to do
that which all admit the other circuit courts of the United States
have not the power to do? It has been earnestly maintained at the
bar that it has because, it is said, that it has by law a larger
scope of jurisdiction.
To bring this proposition to the test of a close scrutiny, let
us compare the precise terms in which the jurisdiction of the
circuit courts of the United States is granted by the Judiciary Act
of 1789 with those which are used in the grant of jurisdiction to
the Circuit Court of this District by the Act of the 27 February,
1801.
The eleventh section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, so far as it
respects this question, is in these words:
"That the circuit courts shall have original cognizance,
concurrent with the courts of the several states, of all suits of a
civil nature, at common law or in equity, where the matter in
dispute exceeds five hundred dollars and the United States is
plaintiff or petitioner or an alien is a party or the suit is
between a citizen of the state where the suit is brought and a
citizen of another state."
The fifth section of the Act of 27 February, 1801, giving
Page 37 U. S. 643
jurisdiction to the Circuit Court of this District, so far as
respects this question, is in these words:
"That said court shall have cognizance of all cases in law and
equity between parties both or either of which shall be resident or
shall be found within the said District, and also of all actions or
suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity in which the
United States shall be plaintiff or complainant."
Having placed these two sections in juxtaposition for the
purpose of comparing them together, I will now proceed to examine
the particulars in which it has been attempted to be maintained
that the grant of jurisdiction to the Circuit Court of this
District is more extensive than that to the other circuit courts of
the United States, so as to enable it to reach this case, which it
is admitted the others cannot do.
In the first place we have been told that in the grant of
jurisdiction to the other circuit courts by the eleventh section of
the Judiciary Act of 1789, the words "concurrent with the courts of
the several states" are found, which words are not contained in the
fifth section of the Act of 27 February, 1801, giving jurisdiction
to the Circuit Court of this District. It is argued that these
words are restrictive in their operation, and limit the
jurisdiction of those courts to those cases only of which the state
courts could take cognizance at the time the Judiciary Act of 1789
was passed. That as the ordinary jurisdiction of the state courts
did not then extend to cases arising under the Constitution and
laws of the United States, therefore the jurisdiction of the
circuit courts given by the eleventh section of that act did not
extend to those cases, because it was declared to be concurrent,
and consequently only coextensive.
This position is, in my estimation, wholly indefensible. I think
it a proposition capable of the clearest proof that the insertion
of the words "concurrent with the courts of the several states" was
not intended to produce, and does not produce, any limitation or
restriction whatsoever upon the jurisdiction of the circuit courts
of the United States.
No such consequence could follow for this obvious reason -- that
the state courts could themselves rightfully take cognizance of any
question whatever which arose in a case before them, whether
growing out of the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United
States or, as is said in the eighty-second number of the
Federalist, arising under the laws of Japan. The principle is, as
laid down in the number
Page 37 U. S. 644
of the Federalist just referred to
"That the judiciary power of every government looks beyond its
own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all
subjects of litigation, between parties within its jurisdiction,
though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most
distant part of the globe."
In conformity with this principle, it is said by this Court,
14 U. S. 1
Wheat. 340, speaking of the state courts:
"From the very nature of their judicial duties, they would be
called upon to pronounce the law applicable to the case in
judgment. They were not to decide merely according to the laws or
constitution of the state, but according to the Constitution, laws,
and treaties of the United States, the supreme law of the
land."
And in the same case, after putting cases illustrative of the
proposition and a course of reasoning upon them, they conclude by
saying,
"It must therefore be conceded that the Constitution not only
contemplated but meant to provide for cases within the scope of the
judicial power of the United States which might yet depend before
state tribunals. It was foreseen that in the exercise of their
ordinary jurisdiction, state courts would incidentally take
cognizance of cases arising under the Constitution, the laws, and
treaties of the United States."
From these quotations it is apparent that no restriction can
have been imposed upon the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of
the United States by words which make it concurrent with that of
the courts of the states when it is admitted that there is no
question which can arise before them in a civil case which they are
not competent and indeed bound to decide according to the laws
applicable to the question, whether they be the Constitution, laws
and treaties of the United States, the laws of Japan, or any other
foreign country on the face of the earth.
The same number of the Federalist already referred to furnishes
the obvious reason why these words were inserted. It is there said
that amongst other questions which had arisen in relation to the
Constitution, one was whether the jurisdiction of the federal
courts was to be exclusive, or whether the state courts would
possess a concurrent jurisdiction. The author reasons upon the
subject, quotes the terms in which the judicial power of the United
States is vested by the Constitution, states that these terms might
be construed as importing one or the other of two different
significations, and then concludes thus:
"The first excludes, the last admits, the concurrent
jurisdiction of the state tribunals, and as the first would
Page 37 U. S. 645
amount to an alienation of state power, by implication, the last
appears to me the most defensible construction."
The reason, then, why these words were inserted in the eleventh
section of the Judiciary Act was to remove the doubt here
expressed, to obviate all difficulty upon the question whether the
grant of judicial power to the federal courts, without saying more,
might not possibly be construed to exclude the jurisdiction of the
state courts. Its sole object was, as is sometimes said in the law
books, to exclude a conclusion.
Congress cannot, indeed, confer jurisdiction upon any courts but
such as exist under the Constitution and laws of the United States,
as is said in
Houston v.
Moore, 5 Wheat. 27, although it is said in the same
case the state courts may exercise jurisdiction on cases authorized
by the laws of the state and not prohibited by the exclusive
jurisdiction of the federal courts. This, however, is not because
they have had or can have any portion of the judicial power of the
United States, as such, imparted to them, but because, by reason of
their original, rightful judicial power as state courts, they are
competent to decide all questions growing out of all laws which
arise before them, and accordingly the framers of the Judiciary
Act, proceeding on the idea that questions arising under the
Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States might and
would be presented and decided in the state courts, inserted the
25th section, by which those cases, under certain circumstances,
might be brought by writ of error or appeal to this Court.
The difference in the phraseology of the two sections has been
adverted to. It has been said that the words in the 11th section of
the Judiciary Act of 1789 are all suits of a civil nature at common
law or in equity, and those in the 5th section of the act of 1801,
giving jurisdiction to the Circuit Court of this District, are "all
cases in law and equity." Now it is impossible to maintain that
there is any difference in legal effect between these two modes of
expression. What is a case in law or equity? I give the answer in
the language of the late Chief Justice of this Court: "To come
within this description, a question must assume a legal form, for
forensic litigation, and judicial decision." And what is a suit? I
give the answer also in the language of the late Chief Justice,
who, in
27 U. S. 2 Pet.
464, says, in delivering the opinion of the Court, "if a right is
litigated between parties in a court of justice, the proceeding by
which the decision of the court is sought, is a suit." It is then
unquestionably true that the court which has jurisdiction over
"all
Page 37 U. S. 646
suits in law and equity" has as much judicial power by those
terms as a court has by the terms "all cases in law and equity."
The only difference between the two sections under consideration,
in relation to the question before us, consists in the two
limitations contained in the 11th section of the Judiciary Act --
the one as to the character of the parties, the other as to the
value of the matter in dispute.
When, therefore, we suppose a case in which the plaintiff and
defendant are citizens of different states (the one being a citizen
of the state where the suit is brought) and in which the value of
the matter in dispute is five hundred dollars, with these parties
and a subject matter of this value all the circuit courts of the
United States can take cognizance of it, whether it shall have
arisen under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United
States, the laws of a state, or of any foreign country having
application to the case. Whenever, therefore, it is said that those
courts cannot take cognizance of cases in law and equity arising
under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, it
is only meant to say that they cannot do it on account of the
character of the questions to be decided, unless the parties and
the value of the subject matter come within the description of the
11th section, but when they do, there cannot be a possible doubt.
And this will explain the case of a patentee of an invention,
referred to in the argument, to whom a right to institute a suit in
the circuit courts has been given by special legislation. The only
effect of that is that such a patentee can sue in the circuit
courts on account of the character of the case, without regard to
the character of the party as to citizenship or the value of the
matter in dispute, whereas, without such special legislation, he
could have sued in the circuit courts if his character as a party
and the value of the matter in dispute had brought his case within
the description of the 11th section of the Judiciary Act. In the
case of
McCluny v. Silliman, however, this difficulty did
not exist, for it is distinctly stated in that case that the
parties to that controversy were competent to sue under the 11th
section, being citizens of different states, and yet this Court
refers to and adopts the response which they had given to the
question stated in
McIntire v. Wood, which answer was in
these words: "that the circuit court did not possess the power to
issue the mandamus moved for."
It has been attempted to be maintained in the argument that the
Circuit Court of this District has a more extensive jurisdiction
than
Page 37 U. S. 647
the other circuit courts of the United States, by the following
course of reasoning:
We have been referred to the third section of the act of 27 of
February, 1801, establishing the Circuit Court of this District,
which section is in these words: "The said court, and the judges
thereof, shall have all the powers by law vested in the circuit
courts, and the judges of the circuit courts of the United States."
It is then assumed in the argument that the powers of the court and
its jurisdiction are the same thing; it is also assumed that the
third section has reference not to the powers of the circuit courts
of the United States and their judges, as they shall be from time
to time modified by legislation, but to those which were
established by the Act of 13 February, 1801, entitled "an act to
provide for the more convenient organization of the courts of the
United States," which, though since repealed, was passed fourteen
days before the act establishing the Circuit Court of this
District, and was in force at the date of the passage of this
latter act.
We are then referred to the eleventh section of the Act of 13
February, 1801, by which jurisdiction is given to the circuit
courts thereby established, over "all cases in law or equity,
arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and
treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority."
Even conceding for the present all these assumptions in favor of
the argument, it wholly fails to sustain the position contended
for. To prove this I need only refer to my previous reasoning in
this case, by which I have shown that under the eleventh section of
the Judiciary Act of 1789, the circuit courts had as ample
jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution, laws, and
treaties of the United States, as is given them by the section now
under consideration, subject only to the two limitations as to
parties and value of the matter in dispute. So that beyond all
question, the only difference is that by the section now under
consideration, the circuit courts could take cognizance on account
of the character of the case, no matter who were the parties or
what the value in dispute, whereas as, by the eleventh section of
the Judiciary Act, they could take cognizance of the same
questions, provided the parties were, for example, citizens of
different states, and the matter in dispute was of the value of
five hundred dollars. And yet, as I have already stated in
McCluny v. Silliman, in which the parties corresponded to
the requirements of the law, and there was no question raised as to
the value of the matter in dispute, this Court reaffirmed the
proposition
Page 37 U. S. 648
that the circuit courts of the United States did not possess the
power to issue the writ of mandamus.
But let us briefly examine one of the assumptions which I have,
argumenti gratia, conceded for the purpose of giving the
fullest force to the argument founded on it. I mean that which
takes for granted that the powers and the jurisdiction of the court
are the same thing. I say nothing of the other assumption simply
because it is wholly immaterial to the view which I take. Are the
powers and jurisdiction of the court equivalent? Whatever may be
the meaning of these terms in the abstract, they are clearly used
as of essentially different import in the acts of Congress, and
this difference will in my opinion go far to show the error in the
conclusions drawn from the assumption that they are of equivalent
import. There are several reasons which conclusively prove that
they were used in different senses by Congress. In the first place,
as well in the act of 1789, establishing the circuit courts of the
United States, and the Act of 13 February, 1801, reorganizing them,
as in the Act of 27 February, 1801, establishing the Circuit Court
of this District, the jurisdiction of the court is defined in one
section, and its powers are declared in another. Now it is an
obvious remark that if powers and jurisdiction were considered as
equivalent, here was mere useless tautology. For upon this
hypothesis, the grant of powers carried with it jurisdiction, and,
e converso, the grant of jurisdiction carried with it
powers.
In the next place, we not only find that in some sections the
term "cognizance" or "jurisdiction" (which are synonymous) is used,
whilst in others the term "power" is made use of, but in the very
same section -- that is, the thirteenth, in relation to the Supreme
Court -- both terms are used thus: "The Supreme Court shall have
exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature where
a state is a party, except" . . . , and in the same section, "and
shall have power to issue writs of prohibition to the District
courts. . . ."
Again, the act of 1789, after defining the jurisdiction of the
different courts in different sections,
viz., that of the
District courts in the ninth, that of the circuit court in the
eleventh, and that of the Supreme Court in the thirteenth, together
with the power to issue writs of prohibition and mandamus, proceeds
in subsequent sections to give certain powers to all the courts of
the United States. Thus in the fourteenth, to issue writs of
scire facias, habeas corpus, &c.; in the fifteenth, to
require the production of books and writings; in the 17th, to grant
new trials, to administer oaths, punish contempts,
Page 37 U. S. 649
&c. It is thus apparent that Congress used the terms
"jurisdiction" and "powers" as being of different import. The
sections giving jurisdiction describe the subject matter and the
parties of which the courts may take cognizance; the sections
giving powers import authority to issue certain writs and do
certain acts incidentally becoming necessary in and being auxiliary
to the exercise of their jurisdiction. In regard to all the powers
in the fifteenth and seventeenth sections, this is apparent beyond
all doubt, as every power given in both those sections necessarily
presupposes that it is to be exercised in a suit actually before
them except the last in the seventeenth section, and that is
clearly an incidental one, it being a power "to make and establish
all necessary rules for the orderly conducting business in the said
courts," &c. And this bring me directly to the fourteenth
section, under which it was contended, in the case of
McCluny
v. Silliman, that the circuit courts could issue writs of
mandamus. That section is in these words:
"That all the beforementioned courts of the United States shall
have power to issue writs of
scire facias, habeas corpus,
and all other writs not specially provided for by statute, which
may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions
and agreeable to the principles and usages of law."
As the writ of mandamus is not specially provided for by law
except in the case of the Supreme Court, it is obvious that to
enable any circuit court to issue it, it must be shown to be
necessary to the exercise of its jurisdiction. It is argued here,
as it was in the case of
McCluny v. Silliman, that a
mandamus is proper where there is no other specific legal remedy,
and that therefore in such a case it is necessary to the exercise
of the jurisdiction of the court, and so within the words of the
statute. But what was the answer of the Court in that case? Amongst
other things, it said:
"It cannot be denied that the exercise of this power is
necessary to the exercise of jurisdiction in the court below. But
why is it necessary? Not because that court possesses jurisdiction,
but because it does not possess it."
Again, it said:
"The fourteenth section of the act under consideration could
only have been intended to vest the power now contended for in
cases where the jurisdiction already exists, and not where it is to
be courted or acquired by means of the writ proposed to be sued
out. Such was the case brought up from Louisiana, in which the
judge refused to proceed to judgment, by which act the plaintiff
must have lost his remedy below, and this Court have been deprived
of its appellate control over the question
Page 37 U. S. 650
of right."
As this answer was considered conclusive in the case referred
to, it would be sufficient for me to stop here with giving the same
answer. But let us pursue the subject a little further. The
proposition which I maintain is that this section did not
contemplate any original writ, but only those which are incidental
and auxiliary. That it did not contemplate any writ as original
process is apparent from this consideration -- that by an act
passed at the same session, and within five days thereafter,
entitled an act to regulate processes in the courts of the United
States, the forms of writs and executions, except their style and
modes of process then used in the supreme courts of the states,
were adopted.
But it seems to me that there is an argument to be derived from
the nature and character of the writ of mandamus and the
legislation of Congress in relation to it which is of itself
decisive against the power of the circuit court to issue it. It is
declared by all the English authorities, from which in general our
legal principles are drawn, to be a high prerogative writ.
Accordingly, it issues in England only from the King's Bench, in
which the King did formerly actually sit in person and in which, in
contemplation of law, by his judges, he is still supposed to sit.
It never issues but to command the performance of some public duty.
Upon this principle, 5 Barn. & Ald. 899, the Court of King's
Bench refused a mandamus to a private trading corporation to permit
a transfer of stock to be made in its books, declaring that it was
confined to cases of a public nature, and that although the company
was incorporated by a royal charter, it was a mere private
partnership. Upon the same principle, I believe that it may be
affirmed without exception, unless where a statutory provision has
been made, that in every state of the Union where the common law
prevails, this writ issues only from the court possessing the
highest original common law jurisdiction. The Congress of the
United States adopted the same principle, and by the thirteenth
section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 gave to the Supreme Court of
the United States power in express terms to issue writs of mandamus
"in cases warranted by the principles and usages of law to any
courts appointed, or persons holding office under the authority of
the United States," thus covering the whole ground of this high
prerogative writ. If, then, there ever were a case in which the
maxim that
expressio unius est exclusio alterius applied,
this seems to me to be emphatically that case. It is of the nature
of the writ, to be issued by the highest court of the government;
the Supreme
Page 37 U. S. 651
Court is the highest, and accordingly to that Court the power to
issue it is given. It is given in express words to that Court, and
is not given in terms to any other court. It is given to that Court
in express terms in the thirteenth section, and although not given
in terms in the fourteenth section, immediately following, the
power to issue it is attempted to be derived by implication from
that section. And last but not least, where it is given, it is
subject to no limitation but that it is to issue
"in cases warranted by the principles and usages of law, and may
be issued to any courts appointed by or persons holding office
under the authority of the United States,"
whereas in the fourteenth section, all the courts of the United
States are empowered to issue certain writs, naming them, and then
others, not naming them and not mentioning the writ of mandamus,
which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective
jurisdictions. Nor is the force of this argument at all weakened by
the circumstance that this Court, in the case of
Marbury v.
Madison, 1 Cranch 137, declared that part of the
Judiciary Act which empowered the Supreme Court to issue the writ
of mandamus to be unconstitutional so far as it operated as an act
of original jurisdiction. Because this case was decided nearly
fourteen years after the law was passed, and we must construe the
act as if it were all constitutional, because Congress certainly so
considered it, and we are now inquiring into what was their
intention in its various provisions, which can only be known by
construing the act as a whole, embracing its several parts, of
which the power in question was one. But if the other circuit
courts of the United States under the powers given to them, cannot,
as has been decided by this Court, issue the writ of mandamus, then
the Circuit Court of this District cannot do it under the powers
given to it, because its powers are the same with those of the
others. For by the third section of the act establishing it, it and
its judges are declared to have all the powers by law vested in the
circuit courts and the judges of the circuit courts of the United
States, and even supposing that to refer to the powers of the
circuit courts as organized by the act of 1801, that does not vary
them, because, by the tenth section of that act, those courts are
invested with all the powers heretofore granted by law to the
circuit courts of the United States -- that is, those by the
Judiciary Act -- unless where otherwise provided by that act, and
there is no pretense that there is any power given in that act,
which affects this question. If then the jurisdiction and the
powers of the circuit Court of this
Page 37 U. S. 652
District are the same with the jurisdiction and powers of the
other circuit courts of the United States; and if, as has been
solemnly decided by this Court, that jurisdiction and those powers
do not authorize the other circuit courts to issue the writ of
mandamus, it would seem to follow, as an inevitable consequence,
that neither can the Circuit Court of this District issue that
writ.
Finally it was argued that if all the other sources of power
failed, there is a sufficient one to be found in that section of
the act of 1801 establishing the Circuit Court of this District, by
which it is enacted that the laws of Maryland as they now exist
shall be and continue in force in that part of the District which
was ceded by that state to the United States, &c. The argument
founded upon this section is in substance this:
The laws of Maryland are declared to be in force in this part of
the District; the common law of England constitutes a part of those
laws; by the common law, in such a case as this, a writ of mandamus
would lie; therefore, the Circuit Court of this District can issue
a mandamus in this case. This part of the argument proceeds upon
the principle that the adoption of the common law,
per se,
authorizes the issuing of the writ. But it must be remembered that
the adoption of the common law here cannot give any greater power
than the same common law would give to the courts of Maryland, from
which state it is adopted. Now in
McCluny v. Silliman it
was decided that a state court could not issue a mandamus to an
officer of the United States; consequently it follows that no court
in Maryland could have issued the writ in this case, and yet the
argument which I am now considering seeks to maintain the position
that whilst it is conceded that a Maryland court, with the common
law in full force there, could not have issued this writ, the
Circuit Court of this District has the authority to do so by reason
of the adoption of that very law which would not give the authority
to do it there.
It does seem to me that to state this proposition is to refute
it. The object of this provision appears to me to have been plainly
this: that the citizens of that part of this District, which
formerly belonged to Maryland, should notwithstanding the cession
continue to enjoy the benefit of the same laws to which they had
been accustomed, and that in the administration of justice in their
courts, there should be the same rules of decision, thus placing
the citizens of this District substantially in the same situation
in this respect as the citizens of the several states, with this
difference only -- that
Page 37 U. S. 653
whilst in the states there are federal and state courts, in the
one or the other of which justice is administered according to the
character of the parties and other circumstances, in this District,
by its judicial organization, the same justice which in the states
is administered by the two classes of courts is here dispensed by
the instrumentality of one court,
viz., the Circuit Court
of this District. But that, as in the states, the federal circuit
court cannot issue the writ of mandamus, because the jurisdiction
and powers given to them by Congress do not authorize it; so here,
the Circuit Court of this District cannot issue it, by virtue of
the jurisdiction and powers given to it by Congress (exclusively of
the adoption of the laws of Maryland) because, exclusively of those
laws, its jurisdiction and powers, as I think I have shown, are
neither more nor less, in reference to this subject, than those of
the other circuit courts of the United States. And as in the states
the state courts cannot issue it, although the common law is in
force there, so the Circuit Court of this District cannot issue it,
although the common law, by the adoption of the laws of Maryland,
is in force here, it being in my opinion impossible to maintain the
proposition that the adoption of the common law here can impart a
greater authority than it does to the courts of the very state from
which it was adopted.
The result of that adoption as it regards this question may, as
it seems to me, be summed up in this one conclusion: that as in
Maryland the common law is in full force which authorizes the writ
of mandamus, and yet a Maryland court can only issue it to a
Maryland officer, and not to an officer of the United States, so
here, the same common law, upon the same principles, would
authorize the Circuit Court of this District to issue the writ to
an officer of the District of Columbia, the duties of whose office
pertained to the local concerns of the District, but not to an
officer of the United States.
Under every aspect in which I have viewed the question, I feel a
thorough conviction that the Circuit Court of this District had not
power to issue the writ in question, and consequently I am of
opinion that the judgment demanding a peremptory mandamus should be
reversed.
MR. JUSTICE CATRON concurred in opinion with THE CHIEF JUSTICE
and MR. JUSTICE BARBOUR.
* I derive my knowledge of the fact that the Lord Proprietary
sat in person in the provincial court from a manuscript work of
much value by J. V. L. McMahon, Esquire, whose History of Maryland
from its first Colonization to the Revolution, is well known to the
public.