Lane County v. Oregon’s Empirical Analysis
74 U.S. 71 · 1868
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 11 district · 65 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 250 later decisions (64 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2023 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923)
44 federal appellate · 11 district · 65 state decisions — followed in 26 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.
Relationships
Relies on State v. Hibbard
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 250 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'[T]he people of each State compose a State, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence,'. . . '[W]ithout the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States.' Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States, through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he people of each State compose a State, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence.... [I]n many articles of the Constitution the necessary existence of the States and, within their proper spheres, the independent authority of the States, is distinctly recognized.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Poindexter v. Greenhow · In re Debs““Now, to the existence of the states, themselves necessary to the existence of the United States, the power of taxation is indispensable. It is an essential function of govern ment. It was exercised by the Colonies; and when the Colonies became states, both before and after the' formation of the Confederation, it was exercised by the new governments * * * The Constitution, it is true, greatly changed this condition of things. It gave the power to tax, both directly and indirectly, to the national government, and, subject to the one prohibition of any tax upon exports and to the conditions of uniformity in respect to indirect and of proportion in respect to direct taxes, the power was given without any express reservation. * * * In respect, however, to property, business, and persons, within their respective limits, their power of taxation remained and remains entire. It is indeed a concurrent power, and in the case of a tax oh the same subject by both governments, the claim of the United States, as the supreme authority, must be preferred; but with this qualification it is absolute. The extent to which it shall be exercised, the subjects upon which it shall be exercised, and the mode in which it shall be exercised, are all equally within the discretion of the legislatures to which the States commit the exercise of the power. That discretion is restrained only by the will of the people expressed in the State constitutions or through elections, and by the condition that it must”
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.