Ward v. Flood’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 3 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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Waiving all considerations of the question as to the rights of the complainants as citizens of the United States, we proceed to inquire whether the act of 1871 and its amendments deny to complainants the equal protection of the laws within the meaning of this section. It may he -argued that equal protection of the law does not mean the equal benefit of the laws; that protection in this section does not mean benefit; and that the inequality here is only in the benefits arising from the laws. Perhaps, the best way to test the soundness of this distinction as applied to the laws of the state would be to imagine the distinction a good one, and see where it would lead. Thus, if protection only means equal taxation, and not equal benefits of the_ taxes when levied and collected for governmental purposes, the state may apply such taxes not only according to color, but also according to the nativity of the citizens. Thus, taxes levied and collected for police purposes, for the administration of justice, or the enforcement of the criminal laws, or. indeed, for any other governmental purpose, may be distributed by the color line, or, as between white people, according to their place of birth, or in proportion as taxes may be paid by each class. If the taxes can be distributed according to the color line or race classification, no reason is perceived why the division may not be made according to the amount paid by each taxpayer, and thus limit the benefits and distribute the protection”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Davenport v. Cloverport

2. ““It ordains that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. What is this but declaring that the law in the states shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the states; and in regard to the colored race, for whose protection the amendments were primarily designed, that no discrimination shall he made against them by law because of their color? The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity or right most valuable -to the colored race — the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored, exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy, and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Claybrook v. City of Owensboro

3. ““ The clause of the fourteenth amendment referred to did not create any new or substantive legal right, or add to or enlarge the general classilication of the rights of persons or things existing in many states under the laws thereof. It, however, operated upon them as it found them already established, and it declared in substance that such as they were in such state, they should be held and enjoyed alike by all persons within its jurisdiction. The protection of law is, indeed, inseparable from the assumed existence of a recognized legal right, through the vindication of which the protection is to operate. To declare, then, that each person within the jurisdiction of the state shall enjoy the equal protection of its laws, is necessarily to declare that the measure of legal rights within the state shall bo equal and uniform, and the same for all persons found therein, according to the respective conditions of each — each child as to all other children, each adult person as to all other adult persons.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Claybrook v. City of Owensboro