United States v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 federal appellate · 12 district · 13 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 122 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The Constitution, for purposes of appointment, very clearly divides all its officers into two classes. The primary class requires a nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. But foreseeing that, when offices became numerous and sudden removals necessary, this mode might be inconvenient, it was provided that, in regard to officers inferior to those specially mentioned, Congress might by law vest their appointment in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. That all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government about to be established under the Constitution were intended to be included within one or the other of these modes of appointment, there can be but little doubt. This Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and no act of Congress is of any validity which does not rest on authority conferred by that instrument. It is therefore not to be supposed that Congress, when enacting a criminal law for the punishment of officers of the United States, intended to punish any one not appointed in one of those modes. If the punishment were designed for others than officers as defined by the Constitution, words to that effect would be used, as ‘servant,’ ‘agent,’ ‘person in the service or employment of the government’; and this has been done where it was so intended, as in the sixteenth section of the act of 1846, concerning embezzlement, by which any officer or agent of the United States, and all persons partici”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Auffmordt v. Hedden · United States v. Cole

2. “* * * An officer of the United States can only be appointed by the president, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by a court of law, or the head of a department. A person in the service of the government who does not derive his position from one of these sources is not an officer oí the United States in the sense of the Constitution. This subject was considered and determined in United States v. Germaine, 99 U.S. 508 , and in the recent case of United States v. Mouat, [124 U.S.] 303, [ 88 S.Ct. 505 ]. What we have here said is but a repetition of what was there authoritatively declared. [Id. at 532, 8 S.Ct. at 597 ]”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Chambers v. United States · Baker v. United States