had
authority to interfere by mandamus, such a power having never before
been asserted or claimed by that court. With a view to the settlement of
these important questions, the judgment of the circuit court was carried
by a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the
opinion of that tribunal the duty imposed on the Postmaster-General was
not an official executive duty, but one of a merely ministerial nature.
The grave constitutional questions which had been discussed were
therefore excluded from the decision of the case, the court, indeed,
expressly admitting that with powers and duties properly belonging to
the executive no other department can interfere by the writ of mandamus;
and the question therefore resolved itself into this: Has Congress
conferred upon the circuit court of this District the power to issue
such a writ to an officer of the General Government commanding him to
perform a ministerial act? A majority of the court have decided that it
has, but have founded their decision upon a process of reasoning which
in my judgment renders further legislative provision indispensable to
the public interests and the equal administration of justice.

It has long since been decided by the Supreme Court that neither that
tribunal nor the circuit courts of the United States, held within the
respective States, possess the power in question; but it is now held
that this power, denied to both of these high tribunals (to the former
by the Constitution and to the latter by Congress), has been by its
legislation vested in the circuit court of this District. No such direct
grant of power to the circuit court of this District is claimed, but it
has been held to result by necessary implication from several sections
of the law establishing the court. One of these sections declares that
the laws of Maryland, as they existed at the time of the cession,
should be in force in that part of the District ceded by that State,
and by this provision the common law in civil and criminal cases, as
it prevailed in Maryland in 1801, was established in that part of the
District.

In England the court of king's bench--because the Sovereign, who,
according to the theory of the constitution, is the fountain of justice,
originally sat there in person, and is still deemed to be present in
construction of law--alone possesses the high power of issuing the writ
of mandamus, not only to inferior jurisdictions and corporations, but