The American Insurance Company v. 356 Bales of Cotton David Canter’s Empirical Analysis
26 U.S. 511 · 1828
Citation profile
135 federal appellate · 53 district · 43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 478 later decisions (91 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. (1982), Crowell v. Benson (1932)
135 federal appellate · 53 district · 43 state decisions — followed in 21 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 Osborn v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Hampton v. M'Connel · Bissell v. Briggs · Bearce v. Barstow
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 478 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“cases affecting ambassadors, or other public ministers and consuls,”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage““These courts, then, are not constitutional courts, in which the judicial power conferred by the Constitution on the general government can be deposited. They are incapable of receiving it. They are legislative courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the government, or in virtue of that clause which enables Congress to make all needful rules and regulations, respecting the territory belonging to the United States. The jurisdiction with which they are invested is not a part of that judicial power which is defined in the third article of the Constitution, but is conferred by Congress, in the execution of those general powers which that body possesses over the territories of the United States. Although admiralty jurisdiction can be exercised in the states in those courts only which are established in pursuance of the third article of the Constitution, the same limitation does not extend to the territories. In legislating for them, Congress exercises the combined powers of the general and of a state government.””
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish.”
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.