The United States v. Thomas Tingey’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

36 federal appellate · 12 district · 30 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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The substance of this plea is that the bond, with the above condition, variant from that prescribed by law, was, under color of office, extorted from Deblois and his sureties, contrary to the statute, by the then secretary of the navy, as the condition of his remaining in the office of purser and receiving its emoluments. There is no pretense, then, to say that it was a bond voluntarily given, or that, though different from the form prescribed by the statute, it was received and executed without objection. It was demanded of the party upon the peril of losing his office. It was extorted under color of office, against the requisitions of the statute. It was plainly, then, an illegal bond; for no officer of the government has a right, by color of his. office, to require from any subordinate officer, as a condition of holding office, that he should execute a bond with a condition different from that prescribed by law. That would be, not to execute, but to supersede, tlie requisitions of law. It would 'be very different where such a bond was, by mistake or otherwise, voluntarily substituted by the parties for the statute bond, without any coercion or extortion by color of office.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Constable v. National Steamship Co. · Moses v. United States

2. ““Upon this posture of the case, a question has been made and elaborately argued at the bar, how far a bond, voluntarily given to the United States, and not prescribed by law, is a valid instrument, binding upon the parties in point of law; in other words, whether the United States have, in their political capacity, a right to enter into a contract, or to take a bond, in cases not previously provided for by some law. Upon full consideration of this subject, we are of opinion,, that the United States have such capacity to enter into contracts. It is, in our opinion, an incident to the general right of sovereignty; and the United States being a body politic, may within the sphere of the constitutional powers confided to it, and through the instrumentality of the proper department to which those powers are confided, enter into contracts not prohibited by law, and appropriate to the just exercise of those powers. This principle has been already acted on by this court in the case of Dugan, Exec. v. United States, 3 Wheat. 172 , 4 L.Ed. 362 ; and it is not perceived that there lies any solid objection to it. To adopt a different principle, would be to deny the ordinary rights of sovereignty, not merely to the general governments, but even to the state governments, within the proper sphere of their own powers, unless brought into operation by express legislation. A doctrine, to such extent, is not known to this court as ever having been sanctioned by any judicial tribunal.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jessup v. United States · United States v. Salon

3. ““The right to take such a bond is, in our view, an incident to the duties belonging to such a department; and the United States having a political capacity to take it, we see no objection to its validity in a moral or legal view.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Illinois Surety Co. v. United States · Lyman County v. Whitbeck