Melville Fuller

“ On February 25, 1879, an act was passed which provided: 'The final judgment or decree of the supreme court of the District of Columbia in any case where the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the value of twenty-five hundred dollars, may be re-examined and reversed or affirmed in the supreme court of the United States, upon writ of error or appeal in the same manner and under the same regulations as are provided in cases of writs of error on judgments or appeals from decrees rendered in a circuit court.' 20 Stat. ”

“ The supreme court of the territory held that the requirement that the respective counties should provide for the expenses of their district courts under this section, which we have not felt called upon to set forth in extenso, practically inhibited terms in counties in which there were no funds, and declared that it had been a frequent consequence of this system that courts could not be, and were not, held in some of the counties at the time fixed by the statute. ”

“ These compiled laws were prepared by a commission authorized to make 'a careful and accurate compilation of all of the laws, general local, and private, which shall be in force on the fifth day of May, 1884'; and the commissioners were careful, as they say in the preface to their work, to avoid 'making changes in any original law.' The compilation of general laws embraced the Revision of 1865 and the session laws thereafter. ”