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follows: "The fees mentioned in section 1883, as 'to be allowed' to clerks of the district courts in the Territories, cover the fees to be retained by them for compensation for services. Sections 823 and 839 are in chapter 16 of the Title mentioned. They prescribe the fees to be allowed to, and retained by, clerks of District Courts; and no other compensation' can, under section 1883, be allowed to be retained by clerks of the district courts in Utah for personal compensation, than is, by the provisions of chapter 16 of the Title mentioned, prescribed to be allowed to be retained by the clerks of the District Courts named in section 839, for personal compensation." 130 U. S. 340, 341.

In that case, indeed, no question was presented as to the classes of fees to be accounted for, and to be included in ascer taining the amounts to be retained, by the clerks of the district courts of the Territory. And the position of the appellee, that in all cases to which the United States were not a party, he was entitled to fees taxed according to the territorial fee bill, and was not bound to account for them to the United States, is supported by an opinion given by the Attorney General to the First Comptroller of the Treasury on December 2, 1891, (a copy of which was annexed to the appellee's brief,) as well as by the opinions of the Supreme Court of the Territory in Marte v. Ogden City Railway, 9 Utah, 459, and in the present case. 10 Utah, 184.

But that position appears to us to be inconsistent with the manifest intent of Congress, apparent upon the face of the acts above referred to, and with the reasoning upon which this court based its decision in United States v. Averill, above cited.

Doubtless, the courts of a Territory are not, strictly speaking, courts of the United States, and do not come within the purview of acts of Congress which speak of "courts of the United States" only. Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434, 447; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 154; McAllister v. United States, 141 U. S. 174; Thiede v. Utah, 159 U. S. 510, 514, 515, and other cases there cited. But it is equally indubitable that Congress, having the entire dominion and sovereignty, national and municipal, Federal and state, over

Opinion of the Court.

the Territories of the United States, so long as they remain in the territorial condition, may itself directly legislate for any Territory, or may extend the laws of the United States over it, in any particular that Congress may think fit. As said by Chief Justice Waite, speaking for this court, "Congress may not only abrogate laws of the territorial legislatures, but it may itself legislate directly for the local government. It may make a void act of the territorial legislature valid, and a valid act void. In other words, it has full and complete legislative authority over the people of the Territories and all the departments of the territorial governments. It may do for the Territories what the people, under the Constitution of the United States, may do for the States." National Bank v. Yankton County, 101 U. S. 129, 133. See also Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 1, 44; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 48, and other cases there cited.

By the organic act of the Territory of Utah, as of other Territories of the United States, the legislative power of the Territory extended only " to all rightful subjects of legislation, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States"; all statutes of the Territory, if disapproved by Congress, were "to be null and of no effect"; and the Constitution and all laws of the United States, not locally inapplicable, were extended over and declared to be in force in the Territory. Act of September 9, 1850, c. 51, §§ 6, 17; 9 Stat. 454, 458; Rev. Stat. §§ 1850, 1851, 1891.

In each Territory, the Supreme Court and the district courts were established, the general nature of their jurisdiction defined, and the mode of appointment of their clerks prescribed, by Congress, as appears in Title 23 of the Revised Statutes. of the United States. By section 1865 of those statutes, the district courts were to be held by one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the Territory, appointed by the President under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The district courts of the Territory were vested, by section 1868, with general "chancery as well as common law jurisdiction"; and by section 1910, with "the same jurisdiction, in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United

Opinion of the Court.

States, as is vested in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States"; with a right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the Territory. And by section 1871 it was provided that there should be but one clerk of each district court in the Territory, appointed and designated by the presiding judge, as well as that "only such district clerk" should be entitled to a compensation from the United States.

Congress, then, in the exercise of its sovereign and supreme power of legislation over the Territories of the United States, had extended, in the clearest and fullest manner, to the clerks of the district courts of the Territories, all the provisions of the statutes of the United States, establishing a fee bill, and restricting both the sums of the fees and emoluments to be received, and the maximum amount thereof to be retained, by the clerks of the courts of the United States held within a State; and it had expressly disapproved all laws of the Territory of Utah, inconsistent with the legislation of Congress.

Among the provisions of the act of 1853, and of chapter 16 of Title 13 of the Revised Statutes, expressly extended by Congress to the Territories, is the provision that the maximum personal compensation of a clerk of a District Court, or of a Circuit Court, of the United States shall be no greater if he holds both clerkships, than if he holds only one. This clearly indicates the intention of Congress that the maximum compensation of the clerk of a territorial district court should not be increased even if his fees and emoluments were derived from two distinct sources of authority.

But the fees and emoluments of the appellee were not derived from two offices or from two sources of authority, but from a single office and a single appointment. Each district court of the Territory, vested by Congress with the jurisdiction, which the Circuit and District Courts of the United States have, over cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and also with general jurisdiction, at law and in equity, was, in the execution of either branch of its authority, whether exercising Federal or general jurisdiction, one and the same court, deriving its existence and its judicial powers from Congress; and its clerk, whether dealing

Opinion of the Court.

with Federal or with territorial business, was one and the same clerk, holding a single appointment under an act of Congress and from a judge commissioned by the President of the United States.

Whenever Congress has considered the amount of the compensation authorized to be received and retained by the clerk of a court, either of the United States, or of a Territory, to be insufficient, it has authorized him to charge double fees, and to be allowed a double maximum compensation, as in the courts of the United States held in the States of California, Oregon and Nevada, by section 840 of the Revised Statutes, above cited; or to tax double fees, without increasing his maximum compensation, as in the courts of the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, by the act of August 7, 1882, c. 436. 22 Stat. 344; McGrew v. United States, 23 C. Cl. 273.

The United States have no greater interest, in cases to which they are not a party, in a court of the United States, than in a territorial court. The acts of Congress, regulating the fees to be received, the accounts to be rendered, and the compensation to be retained, by the clerks, are no more limited to cases or fees in which the United States are interested, in the district courts of the Territories, than in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States.

For these reasons, we are of opinion that the fees, received by the appellee from private parties in civil actions, and from the Territory, on account of territorial business, must be included in his returns, and be considered in computing the aggregate compensation to be allowed to and retained by him; and that, to this extent, the judgment of the Supreme Court of the Territory is erroneous, and must be reversed.

The question of the appellee's right to retain, or his duty to account for, sums received by him in naturalization proceedings, depends upon distinct and peculiar considerations.

The only place, it is believed, in the statutes of the United States, in which fees received by the clerk in such proceedings have ever been mentioned, is in one of the earlier Naturalization Acts. The act of April 14, 1802, c. 28, enacted, in section 1, that an alien's declaration of intention to become

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a citizen might be made before a court of record of one of the States, or of a Territory of the United States, or before a Circuit or District Court of the United States; and, in section 2, that a report in behalf of an applicant for naturalization, stating his name, birthplace, age, nation and allegiance, the country whence he migrated, and the place of his intended settlement, should be received and recorded by the clerk of the court; and that the clerk should receive fifty cents for recording such report, and fifty cents for a certificate thereof under his hand and seal of office. 2 Stat. 153. The provision as to clerk's fees has been omitted in the later Naturalization Acts. Conkling's U. S. Pract. (4th ed.) 722. Rev. Stat. Tit. 30; Act of February 1, 1876, c. 5; 19 Stat. 2. And no act of Congress, regulating the fees and accounts of clerks of courts, has fixed the sums which they might charge, or specifically required them to account to the United States, for services performed for aliens presenting to the court, through the clerk, preliminary declarations of intention to become citizens, or final applications for naturalization.

At the time of the passage of the Naturalization Act of 1802, above referred to, the only statutes affecting the compensation of clerks of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States fixed their compensation at five dollars a day for attending court; ten cents a mile for travel; such fees as were allowed in the Supreme Court of the State; and a reasonable compensation, to be allowed by the court, for any kind of service for which the laws of the State made no allowance. Acts of March 3, 1791, c. 22, § 2; May 8, 1792, c. 36, § 3; 1 Stat. 217, 277. The earliest legislation restricting the aggregate amount which clerks might retain, or requiring any returns from them, was in the Appropriation Act of March 3, 1841, c. 35; and the provisions of section 3 of the act of 1853, already cited, had their origin in the Appropriation Act of May 18, 1842, c. 29, No. 167, which, however, vested in the Secretary of the Treasury the supervisory power over their accounts, afterwards transferred to the Secretary of the Interior by the act of March 3, 1849, c. 108, § 4, and to the Attorney General by the act of June 22, 1870, c. 150, § 15. 5 Stat. 427, 483; 9