Thorington v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
75 U.S. 1 · 1868
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 13 district · 44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 124 later decisions (34 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2016 · most notably Underhill v. Hernandez (1897), Poindexter v. Greenhow (1884)
19 federal appellate · 13 district · 44 state decisions — followed in 15 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 Morris v. Edwards
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 124 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“cannot be regarded, for that reason only, as made in aid of the foreign invasion in the one case, or of the domestic insurrection in the other. They have no necessary relation to the hostile government, whether invading or insurgent. They are transactions in the ordinary course of civil society, and, though they may indirectly ,and remotely promote the ends of the unlawful government, are without blame, except when proved to have been entered’ into with actual intent to further invasion or insurrection. We cannot doubt that such contracts should be enforced in the courts of the United States, after the restoration of peace, to the extent of their just obligation,”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the Confederate States and the United States of America”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“as simply the military representative of the insurrection against the authority, of the United States.”
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.