158 McKIM v. THOMPSON.—1 BLAND.

with accumulating interest, at the termination of the cause. With
regard to the correctness of the decree or order, the committee in-
tentionally avoid any expression of opinion. The high authority
of the Chancellor, and the opinions of the able and distinguished
counsel who conducted the cause of the petitioner, are opposed,
and the committee gladly avail themselves of the absence of any
necessity to pass between them.

"In whatever other respects a difference of opinion is found to
exist, it is admitted on all hands, that from an interlocutory order
to bring money into Court, there is no appeal by the existing laws.
Indeed, the non-existence of such a right, is the sole ground of the
application now before the Senate. The question we are called on
to determine, is, whether it be advisable to interpose a special
legislation to correct an alleged error of the Chancellor. It will
at once occur, that the affirmative of this question necessarily
involves the previous investigation of the case, and the decision
that the Chancellor has erred. It would seem to be obvious, that
if a defendant is not injured by a judicial decision, he can with
no propriety claim from the Legislature a special enactment for
his relief.

* "The committee cannot believe that it will comport with
170 the separate and independent power, which the Constitution
has cautiously secured to the legislative and judicial departments
of the Government, that the Legislature should erect itself into an
appellate tribunal for the revision of a judicial opinion. The
organization of the Legislature, and its mode of proceeding, are
certainly by no means calculated to ensure to parties litigant, a
correct or intelligent decision. If in the progress of the judicial
return, and the development of legal principles, and their applica-
tion to peculiar circumstances, they shall be found productive of
results which the people of the State deem to be oppressive or in-
convenient, it will at all times be the legitimate province of the
Legislature, to repeal or modify the law. Some of the most salu-
tary provisions of our Code have originated from the inconvenient
operation of general principles in their application to particular
cases. But in this, as in all other instances, individual injury is to
be submitted to, when it can only be avoided by endangering the
public weal.

"The committee are entirely satisfied, that it will be incon-
venient, and may in very many cases be extremely oppressive to
defendants in Chancery, to be compelled to bring money into
Court until a final decision upon their claims to it; and still more
inconvenience and oppression, they believe, might grow out of the
principle, that an order to bring money into Court can be used by
the Chancellor as a compulsory process, whereby litigant defend-
ants shall be coerced into an early decision of their rights; and
they would suggest the propriety of legislation upon the subject.