Perry v. Keene’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 18 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The argument then admits that the use is public, but holds that it is not sufficiently public, or is not public in the particular way,, to bring it within the category of objects for which taxes may be imposed. Either in degree or kind, the public quality which it confessedly possesses falls short of that required by the constitution to justify an exercise of the taxipg power. It is incumbent on those who undertake to maintain this distinction to point out clearly the differences on which it rests. An assertion that it does exist is not enough; nor is the argument advanced by a repetition of such assertion, even though made in confident and emphatic terms. What is the rule wherewith we are to determine when a given public use is of a character to warrant the exercise of one power, and not the other? What is the.principle to- be applied? No one wifi contend that the power of eminent domain, and the taxing power, thongh'similar, are in all respects identical; but all agree that neither can be exercised except for a public end. Which is the higher power; or, in other words, which requires the greater public exigency to call it forth? What is the nature of those objects which lie on one side of the line, and what of those upon the other side? Where is the line to be drawn, and what are the reasons that determine its location? These are some of the questions not to bo evaded or met with much speech and ingenious ratiocination, but to be answered fairly and clearly, before a court”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Northern Pac. R. v. Roberts

2. ““In one view, the duty of the court is extremely plain and simple. In another, it is very delicate, and not free from difficulty. We have not to inquire into the policy of the law, or, if the purpose be admitted to be public, whether the supposed public good to be attained was .sufficient to justify the legislature in conferring upon two-thirds of the legal voters of a town the power to devote, not only their own property, but that of the unwilling other third, to such a purpose. All mere questions of expediency, and all questions respecting the just operation of the law, within the limits prescribed by the constitution; were settled by the legislature when it was enacted. The court have only to place the statute and the constitution side by side, and say whether there is such a conflict between the two that they cannot stand together. If, upon such examination, there appears to be a conflict, and if the conflict is so clear and palpable as to leave no reasonable doubt that the legislature have ¡undertaken to do what they were prohibited from doing by the constitution, the court cannot avoid the high, though unwelcome, duty of declaring the -statute inoperative, because the constitution, and not the statute, is the paramount law, and the court must interpret and administer all the laws alike.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Northern Pac. R. v. Roberts