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.

(Court reporters in that age received no salary, but were expected to profit from the publication and sale of their compiled decisions.)

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.

Dallas remained in Philadelphia; William Cranch then replaced him as Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

in Cases of Capture); United States Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania (C.C.D.

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.

401 (1791), is the first United States Supreme Court decision and the earliest case calling for oral argument.

The Court ultimately decided West on procedural grounds, holding that a writ of error (a kind of appeal) must be issued within ten days by the Clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States as required by federal statute, and not by a lower court located closer to the plaintiff in Rhode Island.

As a result of this case, Congress ultimately changed this procedure with the ninth section of the Process and Compensation Act of 1792, allowing circuit courts to issue these writs, thereby assisting citizens living far away from the capital.

419 (1793), is considered the first United States Supreme Court case of significance and impact.

In the early 19th Century the English term Commonwealth replaced Respublica in new Pennsylvania case names.