As was intimated in Marbury v. Madison, a chief of one of the executive departments, when acting under the direct orders of the President, with reference to a matter which has, by the Constitution, been placed within the discretionary or political control of the President, is not amenable to the authority of the courts; but that, when not so acting, he is, as to a purely ministerial matter, amenable to compulsory judicial process. This principle was well illustrated in the case of Kendall v. United States.48 This was a case in which a peremptory mandamus was prayed and awarded to the Postmaster-General commanding him to credit the petitioners with certain amounts which had been found due them from the United States by a decision of the Solicitor of the Treasury.

46 Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50; 18 L. ed. 721. 47 5 Pet. 1; 8 L. ed. 25. 48 12 Pet. 524; 9 L. ed. 1181.

The court said: "The executive power is vested in a President and as far as his powers are derived from the Constitution, he is beyond the reach of any other department, except in the mode presented by the Constitution through the impeaching power. But it by no means follows that every officer in every branch of that department is under the exclusive direction of the President, There are certain political duties imposed upon many officers in the executive department, the discharge of which is under the direction of the President. But it would be an alarming doctrine that Congress cannot impose upon any executive officer any duty they may think proper which is not repugnant to any rights secured and protected by the Constitution, and in such case, the duty and responsibility grow out of and are subject to the control of law, and not to the direction of the President. And this is emphatically the case where the duty enjoined is of a mere ministerial character. ... It was urged at the bar that the Postmaster-General was alone subject to the direction and control of the President, with respect to the execution of the duty imposed upon him by this law, and this right of the President is claimed as growing out of the obligation imposed upon him by the Constitution to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. This is a doctrine that cannot receive the sanction of this court. It would be vesting in the President a dispensing power which has no countenance for its support in any part of the Constitution, and is asserting a principle which, if carried out in its results, to all cases falling within it, would be clothing the President with a power entirely to control the legislation of Congress, and paralyze the administration of justice." 49

49 The same reason which has supported the immunity of the President from compulsory judicial process has, in several of the States of the Union, supported a similar immunity on the part of the Governor. The scope of this treatise will not permit, however, a discussion of this phase of the question. For a discussion of this subject see the University Law Review, III, 335: Mich. law Review, III, 631; Columbia Law Review, VI, 453.