County of Mobile v. Kimball’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

63 federal appellate · 56 district · 189 state decisions

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 684 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Commerce with foreign countries and among the states, strictly considered, consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms navigation and the transportation and transit of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities.””

   11 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kidd v. Pearson · United States v. E. C. Knight Co.

2. “‘ "That power [to regulate commerce] is witliout limitation. It authorizes congress to prescribe the conditions upon which commerce in all its forms shall he conducted between our citizens and the citizens or subjects of other countries, and between citizens of the states, and to adopt measures to promote its growth and insure its safety. * * * Some of the subjects of commerce are national in their character, and admit and require uniformity of regulation, affecting alike all the states. * * * Of this class is that portion of commerce with foreign countries or between the states which consists in the transportation, purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities. Here, then, can he of necessity only one system or plan of'regulations, and that congress alone can prescribe.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Webber v. Virginia · Horn Silver Mining Co. v. New York State

3. ““It is contended by tlie plaintiff with much earnestness that the approval of the secretary of war of the plan and location of the bridge was not conclusive as to its character and effect upon the navigation of the river, and that it was still open to him to show that, if constructed as proposed, it would be an obstruction to such navigation, as fully as though such approval ha.d not been had. It is argued that congress could not give any such effect to the action of the secretary, it being Judicial in its character. There is in this position a misapprehension of the purport of the act. By submitting the matter to the secretary congress did not abdicate any of its authority to determine what should or should not be deemed an obstruction to the navigation of the river. It simply declared that, upon a certain fact being established, the bridge should bo deemed a lawful structure, and employed the secretary of war as an agent to ascertain that fact. Haying power to-regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and navigation being a branch of that commerce, it has the control of all navigable waters between the states, or connecting with the ocean, so as to preserve and protect their free navigation. Its power, therefore, to determine what shall not be deemed, so far as that commerce is concerned, an obstruction, is necessarily paramount and conclusive. It may in direct terms declare absolutely, or on conditions, that a bridge of a particular height shall ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. North Bloomfield Gravel Min. Co. v. United States · United States v. Lindgren