Dillon v. Gloss’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

29 federal appellate · 15 district · 47 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 137 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[w]e do not find anything in the Article which suggests that an amendment once proposed is to be open to ratification for all time, or that ratification in some of the States may be separated from that in others by many years and yet be effective. We do find that which strongly suggests the contrary. First, proposal and ratification are not treated as unrelated acts but as succeeding steps in a single endeavor, the natural inference being that they are not to be widely separated in time. Secondly, it is only when there is deemed to be a necessity therefor that amendments are to be proposed, the reasonable implication being that when proposed they are to be considered and disposed of presently. Thirdly, as ratification is but the expression of the approbation of the people and is to be effective when had in three-fourths of the States, there is a fair implication that it must be sufficiently contemporaneous in that number of States to reflect the will of the people in all sections at relatively the same period, which of course ratification scattered through a long series of years would not do. Of the power of Congress, keeping within reasonable limits, to fix a definite period for the ratification we entertain no doubt. As a rule the Constitution speaks in general terms, leaving Congress to deal with subsidiary matters of detail as the public interests and changing conditions may require; and Article V is no exception to the rule. Whether a definite period for ratification sha”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Coleman v. Miller · Coleman v. Miller

2. ““It seems clear that the purpose of the 30-day clause, Mich. Const. 1908, art. 17, § 2, is to enable the public to become acquainted with the provisions of an amendment after it has been approved. There is nothing in the Constitution which prohibits the postponement of the effective date of the operation of the amendment. Article 5 of the Constitution of the United States provides that amendments shall become ‘valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States,’ yet the 18th amendment to the Federal Constitution prohibited the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors ‘after one year from the ratification of this article.’ In our opinion the electors in voting upon the civil service amendment intended that its effective date should be January 1, 1941, and there being nothing in our Constitution prohibiting such postponement, we hold that the will of the electors, so expressed, must govern.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Snow v. Keddington · State ex rel. Rodocker v. Schroy

3. “* “Thus the people of the United States, by whom the Constitution was ordained and established, - have made it a condition to amending that instrument that the amendment be submitted to representative assemblies in the several states and be ratified in three-fourths of them.* The plain meaning of this is (a) that all amendments must have the sanction of the people of the United States, the original fountain of power, acting through representative assemblies, and (b) that ratification by these assemblies in three-fourths of the states shall be taken as a decisive expression of the people’s will and be binding on all.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Sprague · 529 F. Supp. 1107 - State of Idaho v. Freeman