418 McKIM v. ODOM.—3 BLAND.

But as regards bodies politic of the third class, who collect for
their members private emolument from a public benefit, these and
other evils and embarrassments must arise from a rigid adherence
to the notion that such a corporation can only be forced to respond
to a suit against it by a distringas and sequestration of its prop-
erty. Take the case of a turnpike road company, that had refused
to answer a bill in Chancery. The road itself could not be taken
and closed by virtue of a distringas or sequestration; because that,
as one of the highways of the Republic, could not, nor ought not
to be obstructed by any process whatever against those whose
only interest in it is the toll they are allowed to exact in considera-
tion of keeping it in repair. Consequently, in this instance, the
only method by which the Court could effectually levy upon its
property, as a means of enforcing an answer, would be to appoint
a sequestrator, or receiver, to take the place of the company's toll-
gatherer at each gate along the whole line of the road. Knapp v.
Williams, 4 Ves. 430, note; Adley v. The Whitest able Company, 17
Ves. 324; S. C. 1 Merit: 108; Ex parte Fowlser, 1 Jack. & Walk. 73,
note; Drewry v. Barnes, 3 Cored. Cha. Rep. 311.

The injury or ruin which might be brought upon a body politic
by the negligence or contumacy of its officers, as well as the great
delay and embarrassment in the administration of justice, that
must arise from confining the tribunal, before which it is sued,
* exclusively to the use of the process of distringas or seques-
423 tration. as the only means of enforcing an answer, is most
manifest. To prevent this injury in a case which occurred in
England, in the year 1776, where the warden of a body politic re-
fused to affix the corporate seal to its answer, the Court of Chan-
cery, in mercy to the acquiescing parties, staid its process of con-
tempt, by which the whole corporation at large would have been
affected and punished, by a seizure of their property, until the
acquiescing members of the body politic could obtain from the
Court of King's Bench, a mandamus to compel the contumacious
warden to affix the seal to its answer. Rex v. Windham, Cowp.
377.

It is one of the most valued principles of our government, and
of the common law, that all men hold their situations, in this
country, upon the terms of submitting to have their conduct ex-
amined and measured by that standard which the law has estab-
lished; Button v. Johnstowe, 1 T. R. 504; and that all trustees or
fiduciaries appointed for the public good, or who are entrusted
with the management of the affairs of a body politic, should be
within reach of the law; and in some form or other responsible,
and made to perform their duty. Upon this ground, where the
justices of an inferior Court, or the officers of a corporation, fail
to give judgment, or to discharge their duty, they may be com-
pelled to do so by a mandamus. The superintending authority