List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 76

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, Michigan Bank v. Eldred is 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 544 (1870).

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).

To prevent President Andrew Johnson from appointing any justices, a hostile Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866, eliminating three of the 10 seats from the Supreme Court as they became vacant, and so potentially reducing the size of the court to seven justices. The vacancy caused by the death of Justice John Catron in 1865 had not been filled, so after Justice James Moore Wayne died in July 1867 there were eight justices left on the court at the start of the term when the cases in 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) were decided; however Justice Robert Cooper Grier resigned at the end of January 1870, temporarily reducing the Court to seven justices. Newly-confirmed justices William Strong and Joseph P. Bradley joined the Court in March 1870, in the final weeks of the session. This brought the Court back to nine justices, the number set by the Judiciary Act of 1869.

Fluctuations in Supreme Court membership, 1864-1870

Justices during at least part of the Court session reported in 76 U.S. (9 Wall.)

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)
	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)
	William Strong	Associate Justice	Pennsylvania	Robert Cooper Grier	February 18, 1870 (No vote recorded)	March 14, 1870 – December 14, 1880 (Retired)
	Joseph P. Bradley	Associate Justice	New Jersey	newly-created seat	March 21, 1870 (46–9)	March 23, 1870 – January 22, 1892 (Died)

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 76 (9 Wall.) from Library of Congress
• [2] Case reports in volume 76 (9 Wall.) from Court Listener
• [3] Case reports in volume 76 (9 Wall.) from the Caselaw Access Project of Harvard Law School
• [4] Case reports in volume 76 (9 Wall.) from Google Scholar
• [5] Case reports in volume 76 (9 Wall.) from Justia
• [6] Case reports in volume 76 (9 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