The Walt Whitman Archive
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Title: Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar to W. F. Turner, 27 September 1869
Date: September 27, 1869
Whitman Archive ID: nar.01000
Source: National Archives and Records Administration. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, John Schwaninger, Nima Najafi Kianfar, and Kevin McMullen
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September 27, 1869.
Hon. W. F. Turner,
Chief Justice of Arizona,
Prescott.
Sir:
I am sorry to say that it hardly seems to me to belong to my official duty to attempt an answer to the questions in your letter of the 12th ult. The statute by which this office was established makes it the duty of the Attorney General to answer questions of law only when propounded to him by the President, or the head of some Executive Department.
I am sorry for the scarcity of law books which you find in the Territory—but fear that it is hardly practicable to remedy it by the transmission of my views on questions to which I have not time, unless absolutely required, to give proper consideration.
Very respectfully,
E. R. Hoar,
Attorney General.
declining to answer general law questions &c