United States Reports, volume 2

Not all of the cases reported in 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) are from the United States Supreme Court. The volume includes decisions from various Pennsylvania appellate and trial courts, and from several federal courts. Alexander J. Dallas, a Philadelphia lawyer and later United States Secretary of the Treasury, had been in the business of reporting local law cases for newspapers and periodicals. When the U.S. Supreme Court sat in Philadelphia from 1791 to 1800, he collected their cases as well, and later began compiling his case reports in a bound volume which he called Reports of cases ruled and adjudged in the courts of Pennsylvania, before and since the Revolution.[2]

When the U.S. Supreme Court along with the rest of the new federal government moved in 1791 from the former capital of New York City to the nation's temporary capital in Philadelphia, Dallas was appointed the Supreme Court's first unofficial and unpaid Supreme Court Reporter. (Court reporters in that age received no salary, but were expected to profit from the publication and sale of their compiled decisions.) Dallas continued to collect and publish Pennsylvania and other decisions. When the U.S. Supreme Court began to hear cases and file opinions, he added U.S. Supreme Court cases to the second volume of his reports. As Lawrence M. Friedman has explained: "In this volume, quietly and unobtrusively, began that magnificent series of reports, extending in an unbroken line to the present, that chronicles the work of the world's most powerful court."[3] Dallas published four volumes of decisions during his tenure as Reporter, known as the Dallas Reports.

The Supreme Court moved to the new capital city of Washington, D.C. in 1800. Dallas remained in Philadelphia; William Cranch then replaced him as Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

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"). As such, volumes 1–4 of United States Reports correspond to volumes 1–4 of Dallas Reports. The dual citation form of, for example, Oswald v. New York is 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 401 (1791).

The cases reported in 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) come from the Pennsylvania High Court of Errors and Appeals (Pa. Ct. Err. & App.) (which from its creation in 1780 to its dissolution in 1808 was the court of last resort in the Pennsylvania judiciary); Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Pa.); Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl.); Supreme Court of the United States; United States Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture (Ct. App. in Cases of Capture); United States Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania (C.C.D. Pa.). (To avoid confusion, the Court of Errors and Appeals will be cited as "Pa. Ct. Err. & App." rather than as "Pa.", although the latter abbreviation should be used, according to Bluebook rules, for the highest court in Pennsylvania at a particular time. Rather, "Pa." will consistently be used to indicate the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.)

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).[4] 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 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) were decided, the Court comprised these six justices:

Portrait	Justice	Office	Home State	Succeeded	Date confirmed by the Senate (Vote)	Tenure on Supreme Court
	John Jay	Chief Justice	New York	original seat when the Court was established	September 26, 1789 (Acclamation)	October 19, 1789 – June 29, 1795 (Resigned)
	William Cushing	Associate Justice	Massachusetts	original seat when the Court was established	September 26, 1789 (Acclamation)	February 2, 1790 – September 13, 1810 (Died)
	James Wilson	Associate Justice	Pennsylvania	original seat when the Court was established	September 26, 1789 (Acclamation)	October 5, 1789 – August 21, 1798 (Died)
	John Blair	Associate Justice	Virginia	original seat when the Court was established	September 26, 1789 (Acclamation)	February 2, 1790 – October 25, 1795 (Resigned)
	James Iredell	Associate Justice	North Carolina	original seat when the Court was established	February 10, 1790 (Acclamation)	May 12, 1790 – October 20, 1799 (Died)
	Thomas Johnson	Associate Justice	Maryland	John Rutledge	November 7, 1791 (Acclamation)	August 6, 1792 – January 16, 1793 (Resigned)

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
• "Ct. Com. Pl." = Court of Common Pleas (a state court)
• 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

• Case reports in volume 2 (2 Dall.) from Court Listener
• Case reports in volume 2 (2 Dall.) from the Caselaw Access Project of Harvard Law School
• Case reports in volume 2 (2 Dall.) from Justia
• Case reports in volume 2 (2 Dall.) 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

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

United States Reports/Volume 2