This is a list of cases reported in volume 69 (2 Wall.) of United States Reports, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1864 and 1865.
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 1âÂÂ90 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").
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, The Andromeda is 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) 481 (1865).
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). 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 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) were decided the Court's membership began at ten justices, then shrank to nine upon the death of Chief Justice Taney in October 1864, and increased again to the statutory number of ten when Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase took office in December 1864:
The four Slavers Cases ((The Bark Kate), 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) 350 (1865); (The Bark Sarah), 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) 366 (1865); (The Weathergage), 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) 375 (1865); and (The Bark Reindeer), 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) 383 (1865)), involve three ships seized by the federal government near New York City, and one seized off Newport, Rhode Island. The ships appeared to be set up for the slave trade, and had voyages planned to the western coast of Africa where the slave trade flourished at the time. The cargo, fittings, and other circumstances surrounding the ships led to a presumption that they were engaged in slaving, contrary to several federal statutes.
In The Bark Kate (at pp. 363âÂÂ64), Chief Justice Chase wrote in his opinion for the Court:
In each of the four cases the Supreme Court upheld seizure of the ships by the federal government.
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 courtsâÂÂand 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.