a more secure building for this Department. The danger of
destruction to which its important books and papers are continually
exposed, as well from the highly combustible character of the building
occupied as from that of others in the vicinity, calls loudly for prompt
action.

Your attention is again earnestly invited to the suggestions and
recommendations submitted at the last session in respect to the District
of Columbia.

I feel it my duty also to bring to your notice certain proceedings at
law which have recently been prosecuted in this District in the name
of the United States, on the relation of Messrs. Stockton & Stokes, of
the State of Maryland, against the Postmaster-General, and which have
resulted in the payment of money out of the National Treasury, for
the first time since the establishment of the Government, by judicial
compulsion exercised by the common-law writ of mandamus issued by the
circuit court of this District.

The facts of the case and the grounds of the proceedings will be
found fully stated in the report of the decision, and any additional
information which you may desire will be supplied by the proper
Department. No interference in the particular case is contemplated.
The money has been paid, the claims of the prosecutors have been
satisfied, and the whole subject, so far as they are concerned, is
finally disposed of; but it is on the supposition that the case may
be regarded as an authoritative exposition of the law as it now stands
that I have thought it necessary to present it to your consideration.

The object of the application to the circuit court was to compel the
Postmaster-General to carry into effect an award made by the Solicitor
of the Treasury, under a special act of Congress for the settlement of
certain claims of the relators on the Post-Office Department, which
award the Postmaster-General declined to execute in full until he should
receive further legislative direction on the subject. If the duty
imposed on the Postmaster-General by that law was to be regarded as
one of an official nature, belonging to his office as a branch of the
executive, then it is obvious that the constitutional competency of the
judiciary to direct and control him in its discharge was necessarily
drawn in question; and if the duty so imposed on the Postmaster-General
was to be considered as merely ministerial, and not executive, it yet
remained to be shown that the circuit court of this District