Whitney v. Robertson’s Empirical Analysis
124 U.S. 190 · 1888
Citation profile
249 federal appellate · 106 district · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 730 later decisions (49 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Baker v. Carr (1962), Reid v. Covert (1957)
249 federal appellate · 106 district · 46 state decisions — followed in 13 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 Edye v. Robertson · Bartram v. Robertson
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 730 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the one last in date will control the other”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]hen a law is clear in its provisions, its validity cannot be assailed before the courts for want of conformity to stipulations of a previous treaty not already executed.... The duty of the courts is to construe and give effect to the latest expression of the sovereign will.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A treaty, then, is a law of the land as an act of Congress is, whenever its provisions prescribe a rule by which the rights of the private citizen or subject may be determined.... But even [so] ... there is nothing in [a treaty] which makes it irrepealable or unchangeable. The Constitution gives it no superiority over an act of Congress in this respect, which may be repealed or modified by an act of a later date.... In short, we are of the opinion that, so far as a treaty made by the United States with any foreign nation can become the subject of judicial cognizance in the courts of this country, it is subject to such acts as Congress may pass for its enforcement, modification, or repeal.”
3 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.