Handly's v. Anthony’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 4 district · 54 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 119 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “‘ In case of doubt/ says- Vattel, ‘ every country, lying upon a river, is presumed to have no other limits but the river itself; because nothing is more natural, than to take a river for a boundary, when a state is established on its borders; and wherever there is a doubt, that is always to be presumed which is most natural and most probable.’”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Indiana v. Kentucky · Oklahoma v. Texas

2. ““The case is certainly not without its difficulties; but in great questions _ which concern the boundaries of states, where great natural boundaries are established, in general terms, with a view to public convenience, and the avoidance of controversy, we think, the great object, where it can be distinctly perceived, ought not to be defeated, by those technical perplexities which may sometimes influence contracts between individuals.” Handley’s Lessee v. Anthony, 5 Wheat. 374, 383 , 5 L. Ed. 113 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Dailey v. Ryan

3. “War, “the question whether the immense 'tracts- of unsettled country which lay within the charters of particular States ought to be considered, as the property of those States or as-an acquisition made by the arms of all for the benefit of all; convulsed our confederacy and threatened its existence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Indiana v. Kentucky