Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/105

Rh inferior Courts had erred, was postponed for a final decision until the next Term.

And Randolph, writing to Madison, gave the following account, incidentally expressing his not very complimentary views of the Chief Justice: "After I had finished my exordium which was strong and pointed, and after it was foreseen that I should speak with freedom, Mr. Jay asked me if I held myself officially authorized to move for a mandamus. I assigned reasons in the affirmative and refused to make the motion until the official question was decided. It continued from day to day until yesterday, when Johnson, Iredell, and Blair were in favor of my power, and the other three against it. The motion was therefore necessarily waived for the present in an official form. But being resolved that the Court should hear what I thought the truth, I offered it, as counsel for the invalids. … An opinion which has long been entertained by others is riveted in my breast concerning the C. J. He has a nervous and imposing elocution, and striking lineaments of face, well adapted to his real character. He is dear, too, in the expression of his ideas, but that they do not abound on legal subjects has been proved to my conviction. In two judgments which he gave last week, one of which was written, there was no method, no legal principle, no system of reasoning!" Hayburn's case was never decided by the Court; for Congress intervened by changing the statute involved. Meanwhile, the Judges, though adhering to their decision on Circuit not to act in their judicial capacity under the law, decided (all, except Wilson) to construe the statute as authorizing them to act unofficially as