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Decisions like this make up the internal law of administration. It is well to appreciate their effect at the outset. The question before the inferior is what is proper to be done, the question before his superior is whether what is done is fit. The superior thus takes the whole question up anew and decides himself what is just in the premises upon the merits. All of which is of plain advantage to the complainant. By the internal law the claimant gets relief upon any grounds that may appear. The internal law deals with the question between proper and improper administration, then-the inner circle; the external law is concerned with the question between legal administration and illegal administration-the outer circle. It must be obvious that in any controversy with the administration the first resort would be to the administration, the second resort to the judiciary.1

§ 6. Conclusion.

The difficulty is that in the study of administration the problem is as often institutional as it is legal. The administration may be considered as if a whole-the institutional problem; or as of various factors-the legal

4 RESULT FOR ADMINISTRATION.-Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 169; United States v. Schurz, 102 U. S. 378; United States v. Raum, 135 U. S. 200; United States v. Black, 128 U. S. 40; Hall v. Steele, 82 Ala. 562; Pritchard v. Woodruff, 36 Ark. 196; Fowler v. Peirce, 2 Cal. 165; Land Co. v. Routt, 17 Colo. 156; State v. Staub, 61 Conn. 553; State v. Gamble, 13 Fla. 9; Barksdale v. Cobb, 16 Ga. 13: Bryan v. Cattell, 15 Ia. 538; Gill v. State, 72 Ind. 266; State v. Wrotnowski, 17 La. Ann. 156; Magruder v. Swann, 25 Md. 173; Deehan v. Johnson, 141 Mass. 23; People v. State Treasurer, 24 Mich. 468; McCulloch v. Stone, 64 Miss. 378; County Board v. State Board, 106 N. C. 83; Pfund v. Valley L. & T. Co., 52 Neb. 473; State v. Vanarsdale, 42 N. J. Law, 536; State v. Moore, 42 Oh. St. 103; Commonwealth v. Martin, 170 Pa. St. 118; Mauran v. Smith, 8 R. I. 192; State v. County Com'rs, 28 S. C. 258; Davis v. State, 35 Tex. 118; McCullough v. Hunter, 90 Va. 699; State v. Harvey, 11 Wis. 33.

problem. The proper relations of the officials in the administration is the institutional problem; the proper position of the officer towards the citizen is the legal problem. And yet both of these questions are involved in any business of the administration, which cannot move except as a whole, which cannot act except by its members. The problem in administration is then a complex one in every case. And it is necessary to have the whole law governing administration in mind to pass upon any question that may arise in regard to the execution of the law.

Administrative law is one of two co-ordinate branches of public law; constitutional law is the other. That is, administrative law is the complement to constitutional law; constitutional law prescribes the broad outlines of government-it describes the executive de partment of the government and fixes certain large limitations upon the functions of the administration. Administrative law organizes the administration--it prescribes in the minutest detail the rules which shall gov ern the executive department in administering the law. It is these rules which constitute the body of administrative law. Administrative law consists, as has been said, of those rules which govern the executive department in the administration of the law.

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In every government one condition is fundamental -that is the sovereignty of the state. Since law itself must be based ultimately upon the fiat of the state, it is the assent of that society that makes the law; no man, therefore, may question whether any action of the state is valid, since by the hypothesis it cannot but be legal. Even if it were possible to conceive of any wrong done by the state, the right would be of no value whatever to the individual wronged. For it is in the next place impossible to imagine that any suit could be brought against the state without its consent; since all the processes of justice proceed from the state itself. No act of the government as a government, therefore, ever can be questioned in any way. In that view no action of the administration as an administration is subject to the inquiry of the law; since the administration in the execution of its functions is conceived as the repre

sentative of the state with the immunities of the state itself. These immunities of the sovereign, not only from the imputation of wrong, but even from inquiry into its action, are without qualification; and the subjection of the individual to the state, its consequence, is also without exception. This, then, is one fundamental condition to be taken into the account in any consideration of the action of the administration.

On the other hand, there is another condition fundamental as this, and, in the actual conduct of administration, overshadowing. Wherever the common law prevails the doctrine of the supremacy of the law of the land is to be found. This doctrine, that before the law all persons must stand alike without regard to station, is in its consequences the most pervading principle in administrative law with us. No man may be seized, none of his goods may be distrained without the due process of the law. More than that, no man is above the law, but every man is subject to the ordinary law of the land and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals. Before the law of the land, therefore, the public officer stands as a private person; and the result is startling every act by every public officer may be subject of suit against the officer as an ordinary person. More than that, unless the officer can show an exact legal justification for the precise act which he has done, he has done nothing more nor less than a legal wrong by his interference, for which he must answer just as any private wrong-doer must answer for his wrongs. Such is the principal rule of the external law of administrtion in the common law system; and such is the working out of it into detail. In this view every action of the

administration is subject to the law of the land; in that some officer of the administration must answer in his own person, if anything be done by it without the authority of positive law. This is the important condition upon administration under the common law system.

The problem to be worked out in these lectures is, therefore, the accommodation of these two principles upon which together the law relative to administration under our system depends. The whole situation is just this in brief: The administration, all of its officers together, is not responsible to the processes of the law, as the state is not; but the public officer, any one of the administration apart, is responsible to every suit, as a private individual may be. These are the conditions under which the administration must proceed in a country where the supremacy of the law is made the basis of political institutions. The attempt in this lecture will be to show by the conglomeration of many instances, how administration proceeds with us in conformity with both principles without ignoring either. It is therefore necessary to consider the precise extent to which the administration is free from liability; and the more indispensable to discover the exact point at which the liability of the officer begins. For it is evident that the business of government could not go on unless these rules were well established and well worked out into detail, with care to preserve the true rights and the true duties of all concerned; since no man of prudence and foresight would accept public office under liabilities which were undefined. The order of discussion will be therefore this: first, to inquire how far the administration is irresponsible; second, to discover how far the officer is responsible.