whether a custom-house officer, whose duty it was to make certain contracts and disbursements in his district, was entitled to compensation for service of that description rendered out of his district, under orders of the Secretary of the Treasury. Under the sections now before us it was contended that he could not be paid for the latter service; but the Supreme Court said:

"The legislature contemplated duties imposed by superior authority upon the officer as a part of his duty, and which the superior authority had in the emergency a right to impose, and the officer was bound to obey, although they were extra and additional to what had previously been required. But they can by no fair interpretation be held to embrace an employment which has no affinity or connection, either in its character or by law or usage, with the line of his official duty, and where the service to be performed is of a different character and for a different place, and the amount of compensation regulated by law."

In that court the question arose again, and was passed upon, as recently as the 3d of March last, in United States vs. Brindle (110 U. S., 688). A receiver of public moneys in Kansas was appointed agent for the sale of Indian trust lands under a treaty with an Indian tribe; and the court, citing the second sentence of this quotation from the decision in the previous case, held that he was entitled to commissions on those sales, in addition to the full compensation as receiver allowed him by law. And in regard to the matter of his compensation the court ruled that while the exact amount of it was not fixed, "it was clearly to be inferred that such compensation as the law implies where labor is performed by one at the request of another, that is to say, a reasonable compensation would be paid.”

These cases seem to us to be decisive of the present one. The only difference between them and it is in the fact that in each of them the party held an office with active duties to be performed, while the present claimant held one with no such duties; but this does not appear to affect the result. The point in each of them was, whether the party was entitled to compensation for services rendered in an employment which had no affinity or connection with the line of his official duty, and the Supreme Court held that he was. This disposes of the objections raised against the claimant's demand in this case.

Judgment will be entered in his favor for $1,210.

Discussion by the First Comptroller of questions involved in the foregoing case.

In Meigs's case, ante, 588, the First Comptroller presented a view of the law different from that since held by the Court of Claims. On application made by direction of the Department of Justice, an appeal has been allowed from the judgment of the Court of Claims to the Supreme Court of the United States.*

*The following are copies of entries which appear on the journal or minutes of the Court of Claims, and of papers on file:

The chief justice read the opinion of the court, and judgment was ordered to be entered as follows: The court on due consideration of the premises find for the claimant, and do order, adjudge, and decree that the said Montgomery C. Meigs do have and recover on and from the United States the sum of $1,210. The court filed findings of fact.

The questions arising in this case are so important in principle and results, and affect the public service to such an extent, it is believed that they should be fiually settled by the court of last resort. Errors should never be perpetuated, if they defeat the expressed will of Congress. If the Court of Claims has given to the statute an improper construction, and accounting officers should follow it, the error would never be corrected, unless by appeal. The questions involved are of too much importance to be left in doubt or to perpetuate an error, if one exists. With great respect for and deference to the opinion of the learned Court of Claims, it is deemed proper to give some reasons, in addition to those found in Meigs's case (ante, 588), which seem to [Application on file.]

In the Court of Claims of the United States.

MONTGOMERY C. MEIGS

v.

THE UNITED STATES.

No. 14310.

DECEMBER TERM, 1883.

From the judgment rendered in the above-entitled cause on the 5th day of May, 1884, in favor of claimant, the defendants by their Attorney-General, on the 14th day of May, 1884, make application for and give notice of an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.

THOMAS SIMONS, Assistant Attorney-General.

[Indorsement:] Montgomery C. Meigs v. The United States. Application for appeal. Thomas Simons, Ass't Att'y Gen'l. Filed May 14, 1884. A. H.

[Order on court journal.]

MAY 14, 1884.

MONTGOMERY C. MEIGS

v.

THE UNITED STATES.

Mr. Attorney-General Simons, for the defendant, presented an application for the allowance of an appeal filed of this day, and it was ordered that the appeal be allowed as prayed for.

Subsequently, the honorable Secretary of the Interior requested the Attorney-General not to prosecute the appeal; and, on May 21, 1884, the honorable AttorneyGeneral directed the appeal to be withdrawn. It is believed that this indicates no opinion of the Attorney-General on the subject. The case before the Court of Claim was ably argued by Mr. Douglass, Assistant Attorney-General, against the claim of General Meigs. No opinion, so far as known, has ever been expressed in favor of it by any officer of the Department of Justice. This discussion by the Comptroller of the questions involved had not then been furnished, either to the Secretary of the Interior or to the Attorney-General.

The question may arise in a different form. If the disbursing clerk of the Interior Department should pay General Meigs, and the payment should be disallowed in the settlement of the disbursing clerk's accounts, and he should not refund it, it would become the duty of the First Comptroller "to direct all such suits and legal proceedings, and to take such measures as may be authorized by law, and are adapted to enforce prompt payment thereof" (Rev. Stat., 269). So when the judgment of the Court of Claims may be presented for payment the questions will arise, whether an account must be stated (Rev. Stat., 236) against General Meigs in favor of the United States for the amount heretofore paid him under his appointment, being $4,160, and whether this must not be set off against the judgment (Georgia case, ante, 359), and suit be brought against him in the supreme court of the District of Columbia to recover the residue.

lead to a result different from that reached by the court, both in justice to the action of the accounting officers, and especially as the same questions must arise as to future payments of the claimant until a final decision may be rendered by the Supreme Court. A learned Attorney-General has felt it his duty to advise, even in opposition to a judgment of a court not of last resort. (Devens, Attorney-General, 15 Op. Att.-Gen., 244.) The Secretary of the Treasury has declared himself "not disposed to assent to the position taken by " a similar court in a specified case, and the First Comptroller concurred in his view, which has been sustained by the Supreme Court. (Exporter's Case, 5 Lawrence, Compt. Dec.; Campbell v. United States, 107 U. S., 410; and see Keyser's Case, ante, 261, 351.)

I. It is said by the Court of Claims, that

"It was the intention of Congress that there should be appointed a supervisor of the erection of the building, and that the claimant should be selected for that service, notwithstanding the fact of his being a retired officer of the Army."

But it may be said that it was not the intention of Congress that a supervisor should be "appointed" or "selected for that service" by any officer of the Government, for several reasons:

1. Congress has neither in terms nor by inference said so. The Supreme Court said that "Statutes must rest on the words used-' nothing adding thereto; nothing diminishing'" (Leavenworth, etc., R. R. Co. v. United States, 92 U. S., 751). And in the same case the court approved the language of Patterson, J., in Rex v. Burrell (12 Ad. and Ell., 468): "I see the necessity of not importing into statutes words which are not found there. Such a mode of interpretation only gives occasion to endless difficulty." And the Supreme Court further said that

"Courts have always treated the subject in the same way when asked to supply words, in order to give a statute a particular meaning, which it would not bear without them" (Leavenworth, etc., R. R. Co. v. United States, 92 U. S., 751, citing Rex v. Poor Law Commissioners, 6 Ad. and Ell., 7; Everett v. Wells, 2 Scott, N. C., 531; Green v. Wood, 7 Q. B., 178).

2. Congress expressly made the selection of a supervisor by naming General Meigs as such, and thus rendered it unnecessary for any officer to do so. It has already been shown that Congress had this authority (ante, 593). Congress thus having made a valid designation, it would have been a work of supererogation either to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to do so (which Congress did not do) or for him to undertake it without authority.

3. And the Court of Claims has, in the above opinion, very properly said, "an existing law forbade any retired officer's being assigned to any duty whatever" (Rev. Stat., 1259). The court very correctly treats section 1259 of the Revised Statutes as "an existing law” applicable to General Meigs and to the Secretary of the Interior. It was not repealed nor modified-that is, so far as it declared, in effect, that "a

retired officer shall not be assignable" by any officer "to any other duty," it prohibited the Secretary of the Interior from assigning General Meigs to any duty, and this prohibition remains in force. There has been no express repeal, and there can be none by implication, especially when the act of August 7, 1882 (22 Stat., 324), made a designation to duty, because no officer had authority to make any designation.

4. The Secretary of the Interior evidently understood that the act of August 7, 1882 (22 Stat., 324), appointed General Meigs to be supervisor of the erection of a building, and the Secretary accordingly undertook to appoint the same officer to perform very different duties-that is, "to be supervising engineer and architect for the erection of a" building. The "supervision" of the "erection" of a building is one service—the service of an engineer and the service of an architect are quite different. That is, the duty of an architect is, in its more important functions, entirely different from that of a supervisor; and the duty of an engineer is more comprehensive than that of an architect and of a supervisor. Thus, it has been said by Attorney-General Black, "that the oversight and inspection of a great public work, requiring science and skill to construct it, is the appropriate duty of an engineer"—that is, it is "within the line of their [his] immediate profession," and so a part of its duty (9 Op. Att. Gen., 465). The character or extent of the duties of General Meigs is, for all purposes of this case, believed to be immaterial; but the "appointment," which he had, evidently shows by its language that it was intended to embrace different duties from those of a superintendent. And if he can be paid for services as "supervising engineer and architect," and the duties of supervising the erection of a building are other and different, it may be difficult to perceive why, upon the view taken by the Court of Claims, he may not yet demand compensation for the latter service, if he performed it.

II. It is said by the Court of Claims, that

"The compensation of the supervisor was not specifically named or appropriated for, but it was, doubtless, the intention of Congress that it should be fixed by the Secretary of the Interior, and be paid, as any other legiti mate expense, out of the appropriation."

There seem to be manifest objections to this view.

*An engineer prescribes plans, fc.; a superintendent merely overlooks construction. Thus Attorney-General Black (9 Op. Att. Gen., 471) said that

"To superintend signifies oversight, direction, care, inspection.

and

"To superintend a work, public or private, means almost universally to overlook the construction of it while it is in progress, for the sole purpose of seeing that it is done according to prescribed plans. Superintendence does not imply the power of contracting for the work or paying the hands. The authority of oversight and direction may be given to the same man who is vested with other powers, such as making contracts, &c., but that is not usual. Superintendents of our public works are, generally they ought to be, no more than superintendents. The Treasury building is now under the superintendence of a person who has no power beyond that of seeing that the work is done according to the plans prescribed. All the superintendents of buildings under the control of the Treasury Department are subject to the chief engineer, to whom they report, and who makes the contracts and regulates the disbursements under the direction of the Secretary. Not one of them has ever thought himself entitled, as superintendent, to exercise any of the extraordinary powers claimed by Captain Meigs."

1. When compensation is (1) neither "specifically named (2) or [nor] appropriated for" in an act naming an officer and requiring of him as such a specified duty, an irresistible inference arises, that none is authorized.*

It is as important to name the compensation, as to specify the duty to be performed, and the person to perform it. This must be so, especially when an act is dealing in specific provisions as to the person named. The act of August 7, 1882, is specific as to General Meigs-the officerand his duties; these are all specifically named. If Congress had intended to give compensation to the officer specifically named, it is reasonable to infer that the right to compensation and the amount thereof, would have been as specifically named.

2. This inference arises all the more clearly, because the service required was evidently attached to the office, which General Meigs already held. And the inference, that such service was so attached, is plain, because he was named in the act of August 7, 1882, as an officer, and the duty assigned to him by the act was in the line of his duty as a mili tary officer (Black, Attorney-General, July 31, 1860, 9 Op. Att.-Gen., 465). The reasons for regarding the duties imposed on General Meigs by the statute as attached to his office have been somewhat fully stated already (ante 593). It is unnecessary to repeat these reasons here. The whole argument of the Court of Claims in opposition to this view is in these words:

"An existing law (Rev. Stat., 1259) forbade any retired officer's being assigned to any duty whatever; and if it had been the intention of Congress to set aside that law as to him, and to impose this duty on him as a retired officer, it is reasonable to suppose that more direct and unequivocal terms would have been used, than the mere designation of him by name as the person to render the service. We regard that designation as only an expression of the will of Congress that he should be employed f par pose."

Again, it seems impossible to avoid the belief, that the court erred in describing the "designation." The act of March 3, 1881 (21 Stat., 448), expressly declared that the Pension-Office building, which said act authorized to be erected, shall be erected under the super

vision of the Quartermaster-General of the United States Army." General Meigs was then the Quartermaster-General on the active list. This act required the Quartermaster-General to select the site for the building, and to perform other duties. The purpose and character of the act have been heretofore stated. It devolved a duty without pay on General Meigs as an officer, as is elsewhere shown (ante 594). When the

The opinion of the Comptroller against the claim of General Meigs was made public in December, 1883. The attention of the proper committee of the House of Representatives was called to the propriety of settling "the question of his right to pay," to which the chairman replied that he did "not believe a retired Army, Navy, or Marine officer should draw a second salary from the United States Treasury, certainly not when the retired pay is in excess of $2,500, or salary for second place over $2,500."