Opinion of the Court. MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. Section 2259, Rev. Stat., authorizes one possessed of certain personal qualifications, "who has made, or hereafter makes, a settlement in person on the public lands subject to preëmption, and who inhabits and improves the same, and who has erected or shall erect a dwelling thereon," to enter not exceeding 160 acres. Section 2262 provides that before any person shall be allowed to enter lands he shall make oath before the register or receiver that he has never had the benefit of any right of preemption; that he is not the owner of 320 acres of land; that he has not settled upon and improved the land for speculation, but in good faith to appropriate it to his own exclusive use, and that he has not directly or indirectly made any agreement or contract by which the title which he is to acquire is to inure in whole or in part to any person except himself; and further that a false oath in these respects shall forfeit the money which he has paid and all right and title to the land. This oath is to be filed in the local land office and a duplicate thereof transmitted to the General Land Office. Section 2263 reads: "Prior to any entries being made under and by virtue of the provisions of section twenty-two hundred and fifty-nine, proof of the settlement and improvement thereby required shall be made to the satisfaction of the register and receiver of the land district in which such lands lie, agreeably to such rules as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior." The contention of the plaintiff is that this last section authorizes a quasi-judicial hearing before the local land officers, whose decision is tantamount to a judgment binding both the government and the applicant in respect to the matter of settlement and improvement, and one which, inasmuch as no special right of appeal or review is given, is not subject to reexamination by the Commissioner of the General Land Office or the Secretary of the Interior, but is a final adjudication as to those matters. As a necessary result therefrom he contends that the order of the Commissioner directing a hearing on the Opinion of the Court. charges made by the defendant, as well as the hearing before the local land officers in pursuance thereof, were all without authority and unavailing to disturb the conclusive force of the adjudication theretofore made. Upon the question which this contention presents the case depends, and to it, therefore, we direct our attention. If there were no other provision in the statutes than that found in section 2263, the contention of the plaintiff would find support in the decisions of this court. By the act of May 29, 1830, 4 Stat. 420, c. 208, the right of preëmption was given to certain settlers on the public lands. Section 3 was similar to section 2263, in that it required that prior to any entry "proof of settlement or improvement shall be made to the satisfaction of the register and receiver." In Lytle v. Arkansas, 9 How. 314, 333, it was held that their decision was conclusive upon the questions of settlement and improvement, the court saying: "The register and receiver were constituted, by the act, a tribunal to determine the rights of those who claimed preemptions under it. From their decision no appeal was given. If, therefore, they acted within their powers, as sanctioned by the Commissioner, and within the law, and the decision cannot be impeached on the ground of fraud or unfairness, it must be considered final." Subsequently, and on July 4, 1836, 5 Stat. 107, c. 352, Congress, without any repeal of the act of 1830, passed an act to reorganize the General Land Office, the first section of which is as follows: "That from and after the passage of this act, the executive duties now prescribed, or which may hereafter be prescribed by law, appertaining to the surveying and sale of the public lands of the United States, or in anywise respecting such public lands, and, also, such as relate to private claims of land, and the issuing of patents for all grants of land under the authority of the government of the United States, shall be subject to the supervision and control of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the direction of the President of the United States." This section, so far as any question here is concerned, was Opinion of the Court. substantially carried forward into the Revised Statutes, as section 453, and is still in force. Under this law the case of Barnard's Heirs v. Ashley's Heirs, 18 How. 43, 45, arose. It was there contended, in accordance with the prior cases, that the decision of the register and receiver was final and conclusive, but, the entries having been made on ex parte affidavits, the right of review by the Commissioner of the General Land Office was sustained, the court saying: "The necessity of supervision and control,' vested in the Commissioner, acting under the direction of the President, is too manifest to require comment, further than to say that the facts found in this record show that nothing is more easily done than apparently to establish, by ex parte affidavits, cultivation and possession of particular quarter sections of land, when the fact is untrue. That the act of 1836 modifies the powers of registers and receivers to the extent of the Commissioner's action in the instances before us, we hold to be true. But if the construction of the act of 1836, to this effect, were doubtful, the practice under it for nearly twenty years could not be disturbed without manifest impropriety. "The case relied on, of Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 511, was an ejectment suit, commenced in February, 1836; and as to the acts of the register and receiver, in allowing the entry in that case, the Commissioner had no power of supervision, such as was given to him by the act of July 4, 1836, after the cause was in court. "In the next case, 9 How. 333, all the controverted facts on which both sides relied had transpired, and were concluded before the act of July 4, 1836, was passed; and therefore its construction, as regards the Commissioner's powers, under the act of 1836, was not involved. Whereas, in the case under consideration, the additional proceedings were had before the register and receiver in 1837, and were subject to the new powers conferred on the Commissioner." It will be noticed that the right of review on the part of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, sustained by this decision, was one existing under the act of 1836, and before the act of September 4, 1841, c. 16, 5 Stat. 453, section Opinion of the Court. 11 of which provided that "all questions as to the right of preëmption arising between different settlers shall be settled by the register and receiver of the district within which the land is situated, subject to an appeal to and a revision by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States." This section is substantially reënacted in the Revised Statutes, section 2273. The case, therefore, is a direct decision that the power of supervision and control granted by the act of 1836, although in terms extending to only executive duties, included the right to review a decision of the local land officers as to the matter of settlement and improvement, at least in cases in which the proof before those officers was by ex parte affidavits. And if the right of supervision and control over their decision exists under those circumstances, it is difficult to perceive any reason why it does not exist under all. There is certainly nothing in the statute which in terms creates any distinction, and, indeed, in the nature of things there is no foundation for any. If a provision that proof of settlement and improvement shall be made to the satisfaction of the local land officers does not exclude a review, when such officers are satisfied by evidence in writing, there is no legal principle on which it can be held that there is no review when they are not satisfied by written evidence, but require in addition oral testimony. Indeed, could not the Secretary of the Interior, by virtue of the power given him in said section 2263, prescribe as a rule of procedure that only affidavits should be receivable, and so bring every case within the letter of this decision? But the grant of power to the local officers is not limited by the manner in which they exercise that power, and does not rest at all upon the kind of evidence on which they act. Their adjudication must be final in all cases, or it is final in none. It was final when no supervising power was by statute vested in the Commissioner of the General Land Office. It ceased to be final when the general power of review and supervision of all "executive duties" concerning the survey and sales of lands was vested in the higher officials of the Land Department at Washington. Stress is laid upon the words "executive duties," as though Opinion of the Court. the approval of the evidence of settlement and improvement was not an executive duty but a purely judicial act. This is a mistake. True, it involves the weighing of testimony and the exercise of judgment, but equally so do many administrative acts. The approval of a bond, for instance, involves an inquiry as to the sufficiency of the sureties, which is to be determined by the testimony in support thereof, as well as a consideration of the question whether its terms satisfy all the demands of the law. But who would think of calling it a purely judicial act? Any determination of a ministerial officer may by statute be declared final and conclusive, but such finality does not change its character and transform it from an executive to a judicial act. The approval of the evidence offered in respect to settlement and improvement is only quasi-judicial. It is as much an administrative as a judicial act. There is no contest before the register and receiver. No one represents the government. The action taken is purely ex parte. It is only one step in the procedure by which through an executive department the title to public land is obtained by an individual. In this connection it may be remarked that the plaintiff in his amended reply does not allege that the local land officers demanded from him oral testimony, or that they did not act alone upon written evidence filed with them. There is, therefore, nothing in the record which excludes the case from the very terms of the decision from which we have just quoted. Since that decision the question of the supervising power of the general officers of the Land Department has been more than once presented to this court. In Harkness v. Underhill, 1 Black, 316, 325, the first proposition in the syllabus is thus stated: "A fraudulent entry of public land allowed by a register and receiver, upon false proofs of settlement, occupancy and housekeeping, may be set aside and vacated by the Commissioner of the General Land Office." And in the opinion, pronounced by Mr. Justice Catron, it is said: "The question is again raised, whether this entry, having been allowed by the register and receiver, could be set aside by the Commissioner. All the officers administering the public lands were bound by |