Escanaba Lake Michigan Transp Co v. City of Chicago’s Empirical Analysis
107 U.S. 678 · 1882
Citation profile
66 federal appellate · 33 district · 77 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 373 later decisions (73 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2023 · most notably Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923), Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917)
66 federal appellate · 33 district · 77 state decisions — followed in 26 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 The Daniel Ball · Welton v. The State of Missouri · County of Mobile v. Kimball · John Pollard et al. v. John Hagan et al. · Henderson v. Mayor of the City of New York Commissioners of Immigration v. North German Lloyd
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 373 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““There was no contract in the fourth article of the ordinance of 1787 respecting the freedom of the navigable waters of the territory northwest of the Ohio river emptying into the St. Lawrence, which bound the people of the territory, or of any portion of it, when subsequently formed into a state and admitted into the Union. “The ordinance of 1787 was passed a year and some months before the Constitution of the United States went into operation. Its framers, and the Congress of the confederation which passed it, evidently considered that the principles and declaration of rights and privileges expressed in its articles would always be of binding obligation upon the people of the territory. The ordinance in terms ordains and declares that its articles ‘shall be considered as articles of compact between the original states and the people and states in the said territory, and forever remain unalterable unless, by common consent.’ And for many years after the adoption of the Constitution, its provisions were treated by various acts of Congress as in force, except as modified by such acts. In some of the acts organizing portions of the territory under separate territorial governments, it is declared that the rights and privileges granted by the ordinance are secured to the inhabitants of those territories. Yet from the very conditions on which the states formed out of that territory were admitted into the Union, the provisions of the ordinance became inoperative except as adopted b”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“The Chicago River and its branches must, therefore, be deemed navigable waters of the United States, over which Congress under its commercial power may exercise control to the extent necessary to protect, preserve, and improve their free navigation. But the States have full power to regulate within their limits matters of internal police . . . This power embraces the construction of roads, canals, and bridges, and the establishment of ferries, and it can generally be exercised more wisely by the States than by a distant authority . Illinois is more immediately affected by the bridges over the Chicago River and its branches than any other State When its power is exercised, so as to unnecessarily obstruct the navigation of the river or its branches, Congress may interfere and remove the obstruction. If the power of the State and that of the Federal government come in conflict, the latter must control and the former yield . . . But until Congress acts on the subject, the power of the State over bridges across its navigable streams is plenary. ... 107 U.S. at 683 , 2 S.Ct. at 188 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““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 ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.