Tennessee v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
100 U.S. 257 · 1879
Citation profile
161 federal appellate · 98 district · 42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 656 later decisions (81 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Wainwright v. Sykes (1977)
161 federal appellate · 98 district · 42 state decisions — followed in 20 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Osborn v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Cohens v. Virginia · United States v. Wiltberger · Martin Fairfax v. Hunter's · United States v. Hudson
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 656 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The federal government] can act only through its officers and agents, and they must act within the States. If, when thus acting, and within the scope of their authority, those officers can be arrested and brought to trial in a State court, for an alleged offence against the law of the State, yet warranted by the Federal authority they possess, and if the general government is powerless to interfere at once for their protection, — if their protection must be left to the action of the State court, — the operations of the general government may at any time be arrested at the will of one of its members.”
33 later decisions quote this exact passage““A case consists of the right of one party as well as the other, and may truly be said to arise under the Constitution or a law or a treaty of the United States whenever its correct decision depends upon the construction of either. Cases arising under the laws of the United States are such as grow out of the legislation of Congress, whether they constitute the right or privilege, or claim or protection, or defense of the party, in whole or in part, by whom they are asserted.””
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Neagle · Bock v. Perkins““It is not unusual for a legislative act to involve consequences which are not expressed. An officer, for example, is ordered to arrest an individual. It is not necessary, nor is it usual, to say that he shall not be punished for obeying this order. His security is implied in the order itself. It is no unusual thing for an act of Congress to imply, without expressing, this very exemption from State control * * * The collectors of the revenue, the carriers of the mail, the mint establishment, and all those institutions which are public in their nature, are examples in point. It has never been doubted that all who are employed in them are protected while in the line of their duty; and yet this protection is not expressed in any act of Congress. It is incidental to, and is implied in, the several acts by which those institutions are cre ated; and is secured to the individuals employed in them by the judicial power alone; that is, the judicial power is the instrument employed by the government in administering this security.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.