Buxton v. Traver’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 federal appellate · 4 district · 23 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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A settlement upon the public lands in advance of the public surveys is allowed to parties who in good faith intend, when the surveys are made and returned to the local land office, to apply for their purchase.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Gonzales v. French · Holmes v. United States

2. ““The United States make no promise to sell him the land, nor do they contract with him upon the subject. They simply say to him, ‘If you wish to settle upon a portion of the public lands, and. purchase the title, you can occupy any unsurveyed lands Which are vacant and have not been reserved from sale; and, when the public surveys are made and returned, the land not having been in the meantime withdrawn from sale, you can acquire, by pursuing certain steps, the right to purchase them.’ ””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. McCormick · Holmes v. United States

3. “‘ Biit, resolving’ this difficulty in favor of complainant for the present, we are still of opinion that he had not acquired a vested right in the land when Congress acted upon the subject. What had he done? He had gone upon the land, built a house and barn, and perhaps inclosed some * * * ground. He had álso applied to the register of the land office, and offered to make a declaration that he had done these things with the intention of making a permanent settlement, and claiming the land under the right of pre-emption. This is all. He had paid no money, nor had he then tendered any. The land officers refused to receive his declaration, and denied his right to pre-empt the land. He never has paid any money, has never received any certificate of pre-emption, and the register and receiver have never, in any manner, acknowledged or admitted his right to make pre-emption of that land. So far as anything done by him is to be considered, his claim rests solely upon his going upon the land and building and residing on 'it. There is nothing in the essential nature of these acts to confer a vested right, or indeed any kind of claim to land, and it is necessary to resort to the pre-emption law to make out any shadow of such right. “The act of Congress on this subject, to which all the subsequent acts refer, and which prescribes the terms, and the manner of securing title in such cases, is the act of September 4, 1841 (5 Stat. at Large, 453). That was an act full of1 generosity, for it ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Douglass v. Rhodes · Flowers v. Flowers