OF

DECISIONS

IN

THE SUPREME COURT

OF

THE UNITED STATES.

BY SAMUEL F. MILLER, LL.D.,

AN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE COURT.

VOLUME I.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

W. H. & O. H. MORRISON,

LAW PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by

W. H. & O. H. MORRISON,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. D. C.

M'GILL & WITHEROW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS,

WASHINGTON, D. C.

PREFACE.

THE manner in which the professional public received the work of the late Judge Curtis, in condensing into twenty-one volumes the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, which occupy fifty-seven volumes of the regular reports, justifies the belief that a continuation of that plan will meet a want very generally felt. It is not possible, however, to condense as much in the more modern reports as he did in the older ones, though pursuing exactly the same plan, for the reason that the earlier reporters gave much more extended notes of the argument of counsel, and much fuller statements of the cases as found in the records, on which they were decided; and it is in those particulars that the abridgment consists.

But still it is believed that, in the vastly increased expense of keeping up with reports of this and other courts, such abridged reports of those decisions as can be made on that plan will be found to be a very acceptable reduction of their cost.

In preparing the syllabus at the head of each case, and the index at the end of the volume, in which are to be found the principal labors I have bestowed upon the work, I have given that careful attention which arose out of my own desire to understand the principles involved in the decisions, and my sense of the value of such aids to those engaged in practice, in facilitating their investigations.

The second volume of this series is now in the printer's hands, and my present purpose is to continue it, as speedily as my other duties will permit, through the remaining volumes of Howard's Reports and the first and second of Black's. Whether it will be extended beyond that will depend, among other considera-. tions, upon the favor with which those now promised are received.

(iii)

S F. M.