Dred Scott v. John F a Sandford’s Empirical Analysis
60 U.S. 393 · 1856
Citation profile
85 federal appellate · 21 district · 95 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 300 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization (1939), Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. P Casey P Casey (1992)
85 federal appellate · 21 district · 95 state decisions — followed in 30 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. A case is still cited after being overruled — to note the reversal, distinguish it, or in dissent. 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 M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Cohens v. Virginia · Martin Fairfax v. Hunter's · John Pollard et al. v. John Hagan et al. · Mullen v. Torrance
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 300 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“no rights which the white man was bound to respect”
1 later decision 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.