The Kansas Indians’s Empirical Analysis
72 U.S. 737 · 1866
Citation profile
67 federal appellate · 34 district · 67 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 333 later decisions (86 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably United States v. Wheeler (1978), Williams v. Lee (1959)
67 federal appellate · 34 district · 67 state decisions — followed in 17 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. 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.
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 333 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"There can be no question of State sovereignty in the case, as Kansas accepted her admission into the family of States on condition that the Indian rights should remain unimpaired and the general government at liberty to make any regulation respecting them, their lands, property or other rights, which it would have been competent to make if Kansas had not been admitted into the Union. The treaty of 1854 left the Shawnee people a united tribe, with a declaration of their dependence on the National government for protection and the vindication of their rights.... As long as the United States recognizes their national character they are under the protection of treaties and the laws of Congress, and their property is withdrawn from the operation of State laws." (Emphasis added.) 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) at 756-7 .”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Ejnlarged rules of construction are adopted in reference to Indian treaties. In speaking of these rules, Chief Justice Marshall says: “The language used in treaties with the Indians shall never be construed to their prejudice, if words be made use of which are susceptible of a more extended meaning than their plain import as connected with the tenor of their treaty.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“that 'the conduct of Indians is not to be measured by the same standard which we apply to the conduct of other people.' But their very analogy to persons under guardianship suggests a limitation to their pupilage, since the utmost term of disability of an infant is but 21 years, and it is very rare that the relations of guardian and ward under any circumstances, even those of lunacy, are maintained for a longer period than this.”
2 later decisions 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.