In 1874, the U.S. government created the United States Reports, and retroactively numbered older privately-published case reports as part of the new series. As a result, cases appearing in volumes 1–90 of U.S. Reports have dual citation forms; one for the volume number of U.S. Reports, and one for the volume number of the reports named for the relevant reporter of decisions (these are called "nominative reports").
John William Wallace
Starting with the 66th volume of U.S. Reports, the Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States was John William Wallace. Wallace was Reporter of Decisions from 1863 to 1874, covering volumes 68 through 90 of United States Reports which correspond to volumes 1 through 23 of his Wallace's Reports. As such, the dual form of citation to, for example, Beall v. New Mexico is 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 535 (1873).
Wallace's Reports were the final nominative reports for the US Supreme Court; starting with volume 91, cases were identified simply as "(volume #) U.S. (page #) (year)".
Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of 83 U.S. (16 Wall.)
The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court . . .". The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 Congress originally fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices).[2] Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices (always including one chief justice).
When the 1873 cases in 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) were decided the Court comprised the following nine members:
Former Justice John Archibald Campbell represented the butchers, unsuccessfully urging an expansive interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Slaughter-House Cases
In the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873), the Supreme Court held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only protects the legal rights that are associated with federal U.S. citizenship, not those that pertain to state citizenship. The Slaughter-House Cases essentially gutted the Privileges or Immunities Clause.[3] In 1953, the American scholar Edward Samuel Corwin remarked: "Unique among constitutional provisions, the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enjoys the distinction of having been rendered a practical nullity by a single decision of the Supreme Court rendered within five years after its ratification".[4]
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 the federal court structure at the time comprised District Courts, which had general trial jurisdiction; Circuit Courts, which had mixed trial and appellate (from the US District Courts) jurisdiction; and the United States Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction over the federal District and Circuit courts—and for certain issues over state courts. The Supreme Court also had limited original jurisdiction (i.e., in which cases could be filed directly with the Supreme Court without first having been heard by a lower federal or state court). There were one or more federal District Courts and/or Circuit Courts in each state, territory, or other geographical region.
Bluebook citation style is used for case names, citations, and jurisdictions.
"C.C.D." = United States Circuit Court for the District of . . .
e.g.,"C.C.D.N.J." = United States Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
"D." = United States District Court for the District of . . .
^Edward S. Corwin, ed., (1953) The Constitution of the United States of America, Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress, p. 965, cited in Chemerinsky, Erwin (2019). Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies (6th ed.). New York: Wolters Kluwer. § 6.3.2, pp. 542–43. ISBN978-1-4548-9574-9.
External links
[1] Case reports in volume 83 (16 Wall.) from Library of Congress
[2] Case reports in volume 83 (16 Wall.) from Court Listener
[3] Case reports in volume 83 (16 Wall.) from the Caselaw Access Project of Harvard Law School
[4] Case reports in volume 83 (16 Wall.) from Google Scholar
[5] Case reports in volume 83 (16 Wall.) from Justia
[6] Case reports in volume 83 (16 Wall.) from Open Jurist
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