List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 74

This is a list of cases reported in volume 74 (7 Wall.) of United States Reports, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1869.

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 (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, Lincoln v. Clafin is 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 132 (1869).

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)".

Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of 74 U.S. (7 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 (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).

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 when the cases in 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) were decided:

Ex parte McCardle
Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506 (1869), arose during the Civil War Reconstruction. Newspaper publisher McCardle circulated "incendiary" articles advocating opposition to the Reconstruction laws enacted by Congress. He was jailed by a military commander under the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867. McCardle pursued a writ of habeas corpus in a Circuit Court in Mississippi, where he was unsuccessful. He appealed to the Supreme Court under the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, which granted appellate jurisdiction to review denial of habeas corpus petitions. After the case was argued but before an opinion was delivered, Congress suspended the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over the case, exercising powers granted under Article III, section 2 of the US Constitution to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The Court validated congressional withdrawal of the Court's jurisdiction, and so McCardle had no recourse by which to challenge his imprisonment in federal court.

Texas v. White
In Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700 (1869), is one of the most important Supreme Court decisions during the Reconstruction era. It remains influential because of its definition of the legal status of a state and how states relate to each other within the nation. In accepting original jurisdiction under the constitution's jurisdictional grant of state v. state cases, the Court ruled that as a matter of constitutional law Texas had remained a United States state ever since it first joined the Union despite its later joining the insurrectionist Confederate States of America. The Court held that the Constitution did not permit states unilaterally to secede from the Union, and that the ordinances of secession and all acts of legislatures in seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances were void.

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 (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