222 WILLIAMS' CASE.—3 BLAND.

their duty as prescribed by law; and the Court of Chancery has
been invested with a similar and more extensive power in regard
to the care of infants and their estates. Corners Case, 2 Bland,
489. But neither of those Courts, nor an;s other of the tribunals
of the Republic have been, or can constitutionally be clothed with
a discretionary power to sell and dispose of the property of any
one, infant or adult, merely for his own interest and advantage,
apart from the maintenance and education of such infant owner.
Such a power is not judicial in its nature; and therefore, cannot
be conferred upon or exercised by any branch of the judicial de-
partment.

To coerce the payment of debts, and to make sale of property
for that purpose; or to provide for, and enforce the application of
*an infant's property to his maintenance and education,
206 may well be regarded as the natuial course and necessary
result of a judicial power; as the proper exercise of judicial func-
tions. But to institute an inquiry as to the propriety of disposing
of any property, and the selling of it, and investing the proceeds
of the sale in other property merely for the general interest and
advantage of its infant owner, without reference to any peculiar
circumstances, as in the before mentioned cases of a conversion of
one kind of property into another, has nothing of the aspect or
character of an exercise of judicial authority about it. Such a
proceeding puts in issue, and determines no matter in controversy,
either as to the claim of a debt, or of maintenance, or of any other
right which had been denied, disputed, or neglected. It has noth-
ing judicial even in its appearance. The proceeding is merely
that of a trader, who, upon inquiry, conceives it to be to his inte-
rest and advantage to carry his property into the market, aud to
sell it for the purpose of making a more profitable investment of
its proceeds. But the several judicial tribunals of the Republic
are unfitted and incompetent to act as traders; they have not been
organized for any such purpose, and cannot constitutionally be
clothed with any such power. An arbitrary and discretionary
power, in a Court of justice, to sell and dispose of the property of
a citizen, in any case in which the Court should be induced to
believe that it would be for his own interest and advantage, could
not fail, in many instances, to be productive of the greatest mis-
chief. But the exercise of such an authority over the property of
an infant, would be pernicious in the extreme; not having the
means, or the power to object, or to complain pending the proceed-
ing, the helpless infant might be plundered without mercy; and
that very Court of justice which was intended as his shield, might
be made the instrument of the iniquity.

Upon these considerations, therefore, I am of opinion, that these
public Acts, now proposed to be executed, so far as they clothe
this Court with a new and more enlarged jurisdiction, must be so