List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 83

This is a list of cases reported in volume 83 of United States Reports, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1873, along with two cases from 1872.

Nominative reports

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.

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, Beall v. New Mexico is 83 U.S. 535.
Wallace's Reports were the final nominative reports for the US Supreme Court; starting with volume 91, cases were identified simply as " U.S. ".

Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of 83 U.S. (16 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. Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices.
When the 1873 cases in 83 U.S. were decided the Court comprised the following nine members:

Portrait	Justice	Office	Home State	Succeeded	Date confirmed by the Senate	Tenure on Supreme Court
	Salmon P. Chase	Chief Justice	Ohio	Roger B. Taney		– May 7, 1873
	Nathan Clifford	Associate Justice	Maine	Benjamin Robbins Curtis		– July 25, 1881
	Noah Haynes Swayne	Associate Justice	Ohio	John McLean		– January 24, 1881
	Samuel Freeman Miller	Associate Justice	Iowa	Peter Vivian Daniel		– October 13, 1890
	David Davis	Associate Justice	Illinois	John Archibald Campbell		– March 4, 1877
	Stephen Johnson Field	Associate Justice	California	newly created seat		– December 1, 1897
	William Strong	Associate Justice	Pennsylvania	Robert Cooper Grier		– December 14, 1880
	Joseph P. Bradley	Associate Justice	New Jersey	newly created seat		– January 22, 1892
	Ward Hunt	Associate Justice	New York	Samuel Nelson		– January 27, 1882

Notable Case in 83 U.S. (16 Wall.)

''Slaughter-House Cases''

In the Slaughter-House Cases,, the Supreme Court held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only protects the legal rights that are associated with federal U.S. citizenship, not those that pertain to state citizenship. The Slaughter-House Cases essentially gutted the Privileges or Immunities Clause. In 1953, the American scholar Edward Samuel Corwin remarked: "Unique among constitutional provisions, the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enjoys the distinction of having been rendered a practical nullity by a single decision of the Supreme Court rendered within five years after its ratification".

Citation style

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 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. 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

List of cases in 83 U.S. (16 Wall.)

Case Name	Page and year	Opinion of the Court	Concurring opinion	Dissenting opinion	Lower Court	Disposition
Dair v. United States		Davis	none	none	C.C.D. Ind.	affirmed
Lynde v. Winnebago County		Swayne	none	Field	C.C.D. Iowa	reversed
Voorhees v. Bonesteel		Clifford	none	none	C.C.S.D.N.Y.	affirmed
The Commerce		Strong	none	none	C.C.D. Md.	affirmed
Slaughter-House Cases		Miller	none	Field; Bradley; Swayne	La.	affirmed
Bradwell v. State		Miller	Bradley	none	Ill.	affirmed
Mahan v. United States		Miller	none	none	Ct. Cl.	affirmed
Carlisle v. United States		Field	none	none	Ct. Cl.	reversed
Collector v. Doswell and Company		Miller	none	none	C.C.D. La.	affirmed
James v. City of Milwaukee		Swayne	none	none	C.C.E.D. Wis.	reversed
Garnharts v. United States		Clifford	none	none	M.D. Ala.	reversed
Hanrick v. Barton		Bradley	none	none	C.C.W.D. Tex.	reversed
The Cayuga		Clifford	none	none	C.C.S.D.N.Y.	affirmed
Smith v. Adsit		Strong	none	none	Ill.	dismissed
First National Bank v. Turnbull and Company		Swayne	none	none	C.C.D. Va.	reversed
Koontz v. Northern Bank		Field	none	none	C.C.S.D. Miss.	affirmed
Davis v. Gray		Swayne	none	Davis	C.C.W.D. Tex.	affirmed
Pierce v. Carskadon		Field	none	Bradley	W. Va.	reversed
Peabody v. Stark		Miller	none	none	C.C.M.D. Tenn.	affirmed
Humphrey v. Pegues		Hunt	none	none	C.C.D.S.C.	affirmed
Dickinson v. Planters' Bank		Strong	none	none	C.C.D. Tenn.	affirmed
Knickerbocker Insurance Company v. Comstock		Clifford	none	none	C.C.N.D. Ill.	dismissed
Carpenter v. Longan		Swayne	none	none	Sup. Ct. Terr. Colo.	reversed
Buchanan v. Smith		Clifford	none	Bradley	C.C.N.D.N.Y.	affirmed
Slawson v. United States		Davis	none	none	Ct. Cl.	affirmed
Walker v. Whitehead		Swayne	none	none	Ga.	reversed
Michigan Central Railroad Company v. Manufacturing Company		Davis	none	none	C.C.D. Conn.	affirmed
Cofield v. McClelland		Hunt	none	none	Sup. Ct. Terr. Colo.	affirmed
Ripley v. Insurance Company		Chase	none	none	C.C.W.D. Mich.	affirmed
Merrill v. Petty		Clifford	none	none	C.C.S.D.N.Y.	dismissed
The Mary Eveline		Hunt	none	none	C.C.S.D.N.Y.	reversed
Marqueze v. Bloom		Chase	none	none	La.	dismissed
McNitt v. Turner		Swayne	none	none	C.C.S.D. Ill.	affirmed
Taylor v. Taintor		Swayne	none	Field	Conn.	affirmed
New Orleans Insurance Company v. Piaggio		Clifford	none	none	C.C.D. La.	reversed
Burke v. Smith		Strong	none	none	C.C.D. Ind.	affirmed
Huntington v. Texas		Chase	none	none	Sup. Ct. D.C.	reversed
United States v. Huckabee		Clifford	none	none	C.C.M.D. Ala.	reversed
Walker v. Henshaw		Davis	none	none	Kan.	affirmed
Ribon v. Railroad Companies		Swayne	none	none	C.C.D. Iowa	affirmed
Kenicott v. Wayne County		Hunt	none	none	C.C.S.D. Ill.	reversed
Morgan v. Parham		Hunt	none	none	C.C.S.D. Ala.	reversed
Osborne v. City of Mobile		Chase	none	none	Ala.	affirmed
Planters' Bank v. Union Bank		Strong	none	Bradley	C.C.D. La.	affirmed
Tweed's Case		Clifford	none	Bradley	C.C.D. La.	affirmed
American Steamboat Company v. Chase		Clifford	none	none	R.I.	affirmed
Beall v. New Mexico		Bradley	none	none	Sup. Ct. Terr. N.M.	reversed
Mitchell v. Hawley		Clifford	none	none	C.C.D. Mass.	affirmed
Marshall v. Knox		Bradley	none	none	C.C.D. La.	reversed
Smith v. McCool		Swayne	none	none	C.C.N.D. Ill.	affirmed
Specht v. Howard		Swayne	none	none	C.C.W.D. Tenn.	affirmed
St. Paul Water Company v. Ware		Clifford	none	none	C.C.D. Minn.	affirmed
Walbrun v. Babbitt		Davis	none	none	C.C.D. Mo.	affirmed
Wager v. Hall		Clifford	none	none	C.C.W.D. Wis.	affirmed
Kansas Pacific Railway Company v. Prescott		Miller	none	none	Kan.	reversed
Crapo v. Kelly		Hunt	Clifford	Bradley	N.Y. Sup. Ct.	reversed
St Joseph Township v. Rogers		Clifford	none	none	C.C.S.D. Ill.	affirmed
Railroad Company v. Otoe County		Strong	none	none	C.C.D. Neb.	certification
Olcott v. Fond du Lac County		Strong	none	none	C.C.E.D. Wis.	reversed
Ex parte United States		per curiam	none	none	Ct. Cl.	mandamus granted