Ware v. Hylton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

62 federal appellate · 22 district · 43 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 226 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““By the article before recited, treaties also made under the authority of the United States shall be_ the supreme law. It is not said that these treaties shall be made in pursuance of the Constitution, nor are there any constitutional bounds set to those who shall make them. The President and two-thirds of the Senate will be empowered to make 1 rea ties indefinitely, and, when these treaties shall bo made, they will also abolish all laws and state Constitutions incompatible with them. This power in the President and Senate is absolute, and the judges will he bound to allow full force to whatever rule, article, or thing the President and Senate shall establish by treaty. Whether it be practicable to set any bounds to those who make treaties, lam not able to say; if not, it proves that this power ought to bo more safely lodged.” Scott’s Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers, vol. 2, pp. 867, 868.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Thompson · 206 F. Supp. 2d 448 - Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York

2. ““This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall he the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Terrace v. Thompson · Kadota v. Hosogai

3. ““There can be no limitation on the power of the people of the United States. By their authority, the state Constitutions were made, and by their authority the Constitution of the United States was established: and they had the power to change or abolish the state Constitutions, or to make them yield to the general government, and to treaties made by their authority. A treaty cannot be the supreme law of the land — that is, of all the United States — if any act of a state Legislature can stand in its way. If the Constitution of a state (which is the fundamental law of the state, and paramount to its Legislature) must give way to a treaty, and fall before it, can it be questioned whether the less power, an act of the state Legislature, must not be prostrated? It is the declared will of the people of the United States that every treaty made by the authority of the United States shall be superior to the Constitution and laws of any individual state; and their will alone is to decide. If a law of a state, contrary to a treaty, is not void, but voidable only, by a repeal, or nullification by a state Legislature, this certain consequence follows: That the will of a "small part of the United States may control or defeat the will of the whole. The people of America have been pleased to declare that all treaties made before the establishment of the national Constitution, or laws of any of the states contrary to a treaty, shall be disregarded.””

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