Dictionary.net

Attorney-General Randolph in 1792 moved that the Supreme Court issue a mandamus to the Circuit Court of Pennsylvania to admit Hayburn of that State to the United States pension list. Randolph declared he made the motion ex officio with a view to seeing the provisions of the Act of Congress of March 23, 1792, relating to pensions, executed. The court would not allow this, so he next pleaded the merits of the case. Judgment was postponed and never given, since the Act of Congress of 1793 provided for pensioners in another way. Whether the Act of 1792 was constitutional was not decided by the court; but the judges were individually of that opinion, and this gives the case a certain importance, being a very early one, among those involving such considerations.