Wallace, John William

Wallace, John William (b. Philadelphia, Pa., 17 Feb. 1815; d. Philadelphia, Pa., 12 Jan. 1884), reporter of decisions, 1863–1875. Last author of a nominative series of Supreme Court reports, Wallace was the son of a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1833 and studied law in his father's office. Wallace soon turned to the discipline of law librarianship, becoming librarian and treasurer of the Law Association of Philadelphia in 1841. In 1849 he published the first of three volumes of decisions of the United States Court for the Third Circuit.

Wallace's most important publication before coming to the Supreme Court was the 1844 work The Reporters, Chronologically Arranged: with Occasional Remarks upon their Reporting Merits. This commentary on the English reporters was revised and republished several times. A work of great scholarship, it established Wallace's reputation in the national bar. He also wrote notes on American cases for the third volume of the series known as British Crown Cases Reserved (6 vols., 1839–1853).

When Jeremiah Black resigned as Supreme Court reporter in 1863, Wallace succeeded him as the seventh reporter. Before his own resignation in 1875, Wallace authored twenty‐three volumes of reports (1–23 Wallace and 68–90 U.S. Reports), often praised for their quality. After the judiciary appropriation of 1874, in which Congress allocated twenty‐five thousand dollars toward reporting decisions of the Court, 23 Wallace became the last official nominative volume.

After leaving the Court, Wallace continued to write works of literary quality and became president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. A devout Roman Catholic, Wallace was known as a reserved man of old‐fashioned courtesy.

See also Reporters, Supreme Court.

Francis Helminski