List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 71

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, Thompson v. Bowie is 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 463 (1867).

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)".

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 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) were decided the following nine justices were members of the Court:

Portrait	Justice	Office	Home State	Succeeded	Date confirmed by the Senate (Vote)	Tenure on Supreme Court
	Salmon P. Chase	Chief Justice	Ohio	Roger B. Taney	December 6, 1864 (Acclamation)	December 15, 1864 – May 7, 1873 (Died)
	James Moore Wayne	Associate Justice	Georgia	William Johnson	January 9, 1835 (Acclamation)	January 14, 1835 – July 5, 1867 (Died)
	Samuel Nelson	Associate Justice	New York	Smith Thompson	February 14, 1845 (Acclamation)	February 27, 1845 – November 28, 1872 (Retired)
	Robert Cooper Grier	Associate Justice	Pennsylvania	Henry Baldwin	August 4, 1846 (Acclamation)	August 10, 1846 – January 31, 1870 (Retired)
	Nathan Clifford	Associate Justice	Maine	Benjamin Robbins Curtis	January 12, 1858 (26–23)	January 21, 1858 – July 25, 1881 (Died)
	Noah Haynes Swayne	Associate Justice	Ohio	John McLean	January 24, 1862 (38–1)	January 27, 1862 – January 24, 1881 (Retired)
	Samuel Freeman Miller	Associate Justice	Iowa	Peter Vivian Daniel	July 16, 1862 (Acclamation)	July 21, 1862 – October 13, 1890 (Died)
	David Davis	Associate Justice	Illinois	John Archibald Campbell	December 8, 1862 (Acclamation)	December 10, 1862 – March 4, 1877 (Resigned)
	Stephen Johnson Field	Associate Justice	California	newly-created seat	March 10, 1863 (Acclamation)	May 10, 1863 – December 1, 1897 (Retired)

Ex parte Milligan

Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866), is a Supreme Court decision that ruled unconstitutional the application of military tribunals to citizens when civilian courts are still operating. The Court held that "martial rule can never exist when the courts are open", and confined martial law to areas of "military operations, where war really prevails" and when it was a necessity to provide a substitute for a civil authority that had been overthrown.

Ex parte Garland

Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333 (1866), is an important case involving the disbarment of former Confederate officials. The Supreme Court ruled that a statute prohibiting former Confederate government officials from serving in the US government was unconstitutional as being both a bill of attainder and an ex post facto law. The Court also held that lawyers are officers of the court, not officers of the United States, and that their removal must be an exercise of judicial power, not legislative power.

Mississippi v. Johnson

Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 475 (1867), was the first suit to be brought against a President of the United States in the United States Supreme Court. The state of Mississippi attempted to sue President Andrew Johnson for enforcing Reconstruction. The Court ruled in favor of the president.

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 . . .
  • e.g.,"D. Mass." = United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
• "E." = Eastern; "M." = Middle; "N." = Northern; "S." = Southern; "W." = Western
  • e.g.,"C.C.S.D.N.Y." = United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
  • e.g.,"M.D. Ala." = United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
• "Ct. Cl." = United States Court of Claims
• The abbreviation of a state's name alone indicates the highest appellate court in that state's judiciary at the time.
  • e.g.,"Pa." = Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
  • e.g.,"Me." = Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

certificate of division

• [1] Case reports in volume 71 (4 Wall.) from Library of Congress
• [2] Case reports in volume 71 (4 Wall.) from Court Listener
• [3] Case reports in volume 71 (4 Wall.) from the Caselaw Access Project of Harvard Law School
• [4] Case reports in volume 71 (4 Wall.) from Google Scholar
• [5] Case reports in volume 71 (4 Wall.) from Justia
• [6] Case reports in volume 71 (4 Wall.) from Open Jurist
• Website of the United States Supreme Court
• United States Courts website about the Supreme Court
• National Archives, Records of the Supreme Court of the United States
• American Bar Association, How Does the Supreme Court Work?
• The Supreme Court Historical Society