Ogden v. Saunders’s Empirical Analysis
25 U.S. 213 · 1827
Citation profile
79 federal appellate · 42 district · 342 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 731 later decisions (106 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Butner v. United States (1979), Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936)
79 federal appellate · 42 district · 342 state decisions — followed in 44 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 Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward · Fletcher v. Peck · Sturges v. Crowninshield · Green v. Biddle
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 731 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'It is but a decent respect, due to the wisdom, the integrity, and the patriotism of the legislative body by which any law is passed, to presume in favor of its validity, until its violation is proved beyond all reasonable doubt.'”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[n]o State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . . .”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“The occasion and general purpose of the contract clause are summed up in the terse statement of Chief Justice Marshall in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, 354, 355 , 6 L.Ed. 606 : ‘The power of changing the relative situation of debtor and creditor, of interfering with contracts, a power which comes home to every man, touches the interest of all, and controls the conduct of every individual in those things which he supposes to be proper for his own exclusive management, had been used to such an excess by the state legislatures, as to break in upon the ordinary intercourse of society, and destroy all confidence between man and man. This mischief had become so great, so alarming, as not only to impair commercial intercourse, and threaten the existence of credit, but to sap the morals of the people, and destroy the sanctity of private faith. To guard against the continuance of the evil, was an object of deep interest with all the truly wise, as well as the virtuous, of this great community, and was one of the important benefits expected from a reform of the government.’”
2 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.