Morrison Waite

“ Whatever it is within the power of the creditor to compel the tax-collector to do without the intervention of the court of commissioners, the commissioners are not required by the writ against them to do. Their whole duty in respect to the collection of the tax is performed when they have so far set the machinery of collection in motion that others are required to keep it going. ”

“ The general principle which governs proceedings by mandamus is, that whatever can be done without the employment of that extraordinary remedy, may not be done with it. It only lies when there is practically no other remedy. As a necessary consequence the writ must issue directly against him whose duty it is to do the thing which the parties seek to have done ”