Melville Fuller

“ If we were to reverse that judgment upon the ground urged, it would not be for want of power in the Auditor to audit the account, and in the Comptroller to revise and pass upon it, but because those officers had disallowed what they ought to have allowed and erroneously construed what needed no construction. ”

“ It was insisted that by the disallowance of petitioner's claim for mileage these officers exercised a discretion which they did not possess; that this was an invalid exercise of an authority under the United States; and that hence the validity of the authority was drawn in question. We held otherwise, and said:
'The validity of a statute is not drawn in question every time rights claimed under such statute are controverted, not is the validity of an authority, every time an act done by such authority is disputed. . . . ”