On February 4, 1896, the Court of Appeals overturned the writ. The Court of Appeals agreed that the Act of December 21, 1893, clearly ordered the District of Columbia to open North Capitol Street. This command was not discretionary. The question was whether, and to what extent, the Act of August 7, 1895, repealed or altered this intent of Congress. The court was highly critical of the language of the Act of August 7. It was "most unwisely and improvidently drawn by some one who gave but little thought to it, and was undoubtedly passed without consideration; and in our former opinion, when its provisions were pressed upon our attention, we were compelled to disregard them". Even so, the court held, the Act of August 7, 1895, acted as a repeal of the Act of December 21, 1893. This left the method of condemnation specified in the second part of the Act of August 7 inconsistent and unenforceable. But with the requirement to open North Capitol Street now repealed, the commissioners were not obliged to take the land. The only way to interpret the Act of August 7, the court of appeals concluded, was to assume that Congress had withdrawn from the attempt at condemnation. No writ should issue, as the city commissioners had the right to refuse to take the land.