Cox v. Wood’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

26 federal appellate · 7 district · 4 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 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Coming to consider the elaborate contentions and arguments supporting them made in the present case, it is indisputable that they all rest upon the assumption as to the exclusive character of the delegation made to Congress by the militia clause (article I, § 8) and the restriction, as to the use of the military force raised under such delegation, resulting from the provisions in the clause relied upon, that is, the prohibition of compulsory service beyond the territorial limits of the United States. But we are of opinion that we are not now called upon to consider these contentions as a matter of original inquiry, because the fundamental mistake upon which all the arguments rest and the error in the conclusion which they are advanced to sustain, were pointed out and conclusively established by the decision sustaining the Selective Draft Law recently announced in the Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 , 38 S.Ct. 159 , 62 L.Ed. 349 . This result is apparent since on the face of the opinion delivered in those cases the constitutional power of Congress to compel the military service which the assailed law commanded was based on the following propositions: (a) That the power of Congress to compel military service and the duty of the citizen to render it when called for were derived from the authority given to Congress by the Constitution to declare war and to raise armies, (b) That those powers were not qualified or restricted by the provisions of the militia clause, and he”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Richmond

2. “Considering the passages referred to, and making every allowance for intensity of zeal and an extreme of ernestness on the part of counsel, we are nevertheless constrained to the conclusion that the passages justify the terms of censure by which they are characterized in the suggestion made by the government. But, despite this conclusion, which we regretfully reach, we see no useful purpose to be sub-served by granting the motion to strike. On the contrary, we think the passages on their face are so obviously intemperate and so patently unwarranted that if, as a result of permitting the passages to remain on the files, they should come under future observation, they would but serve to indicate to what intemperance of statement an absence of self-restraint or forgetfulness of decorum will lead, and therefore admonish of the duty to be sedulous to obey and respect the limitations which an adhesion to them must exact.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wilson v. Wilson

3. “[T]he authority in the exercise of the war power to raise armies and use them when raised was not subject to limitations as to use of the militia, if any, deduced from the militia clause____ [T]he power to call for military duty under the authority to declare war and raise armies and the duty of the citizen to serve when called ... knew no limit deduced from a separate, and for the purpose of the war power, wholly incidental, if not irrelevant and subordinate, provision concerning the militia, found in the Constitution.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 686 F. Supp. 30 - Dukakis v. United States Department of Defense