Admitting that the adoption of the laws of Maryland for a portion of
this District confers on the circuit court thereof, in that portion, the
transcendent extrajudicial prerogative powers of the court of king's
bench in England, or that either of the acts of Congress by necessary
implication authorizes the former court to issue a writ of mandamus to
an officer of the United States to compel him to perform a ministerial
duty, the consequences are in one respect the same. The result in either
case is that the officers of the United States stationed in different
parts of the United States are, in respect to the performance of
their official duties, subject to different laws and a different
supervision--those in the States to one rule, and those in the District
of Columbia to another and a very different one. In the District their
official conduct is subject to a judicial control from which in the
States they are exempt.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the expediency of vesting
such a power in the judiciary in a system of government constituted
like that of the United States, all must agree that these disparaging
discrepancies in the law and in the administration of justice ought not
to be permitted to continue; and as Congress alone can provide the
remedy, the subject is unavoidably presented to your consideration.
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