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, Gregg v. Von Phul is 68 U.S. (1 Wall.) 274 (1864).
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 68 U.S. (1 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 cases in 68 U.S. (1 Wall.) were decided the Court comprised these ten members (this was due to the Tenth Circuit Act of 1863, expanding the Court's membership from nine to ten justices, to date the largest number of active justices in its history):
Ex parte Vallandigham, 68 U.S. (1 Wall.) 243 (1864) is a case involving a former congressman, Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, who had violated an Army order against the public expression of sympathy for the Confederate States and their cause. Vallandigham was tried before a military tribunal for treason after he delivered an incendiary speech at Mount Vernon; he appealed the military verdict to the Supreme Court, arguing that he as a civilian could not be tried before a military tribunal. On appeal, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling refusing to address Vallandigham's main argument that the military tribunal lacked jurisdiction to try him. Instead, they held that the Court was only authorized to take appeals as regulated by Congress – and Congress had never authorized them to take an appeal from a military tribunal, denying Vallandigham's appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Ex parte Vallandigham was cited by the Supreme Court in several important 20th Century cases, for example, Ex parte Quirin, and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.
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 . . .
