Anderson v. Dunn The House of Representatives charged John Anderson with contempt for insulting the House. Anderson had asked Rep. Louis Williams of North Carolina to help him recover property in Mic . . .
Barron v. Baltimore John Barron owned a wharf in Baltimore. The wharf became virtually worthless after city construction projects made the water surrounding it too shallow for most ships. Barron clai . . .
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge One of the classic cases of the Taney Court, Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge helped settle the boundaries between vested rights based on charters and contr . . .
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia Cherokee Nation v. Georgia marked the beginning of a tragedy of national scale, leading to the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans from the eastern . . .
Dartmouth College v. Woodward In 1754 Rev. Eleazer Wheelock founded a school to train missionaries and provide education for American Indians. English benefactors—including Lord Dartmouth— . . .
Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee This case grew out of litigation surrounding the vast estates—approximately 300,000 acres of land—granted to Thomas, Lord Fairfax, a Virginia loyalist . . .
Gibbons v. Ogden In 1808 the New York legislature granted Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton a thirty-year monopoly over steamboat transportation on all state waters and all steamboat transportat . . .
Martin v. Hunter's Lessee This case was the culmination of more than twenty years of litigation involving the status of vast lands in Virginia owned by Thomas, Lord Fairfax, who fled to England durin . . .
McCulloch v. Maryland In perhaps his greatest opinion and one of the most important “state papers” of American constitutional law, Chief Justice Marshall upheld the constitutionality of t . . .
Ogden v. Saunders Ogden v. Saunders was the only constitutional law case of Chief Justice Marshall's career in which he dissented. Oddly, his dissent left the Court without any leadership, and each . . .
Prigg v. Pennsylvania In 1837 Edward Prigg and three other men seized as fugitive slaves Margaret Morgan and her children, who were living in Pennsylvania. Prigg and the others brought the blacks bac . . .
Sturges v. Crowninshield Richard Crowninshield, a boyhood friend of Justice Story, was a flamboyant entrepreneur who moved to New York and in 1811 declared bankruptcy under a state law of April 3 of . . .
Swift v. Tyson In Swift v. Tyson Justice Story clarified the use of state precedents in commercial litigation in federal courts. Story's opinion was the governing rule until overturned by Erie Railro . . .
United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad Also known as The Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 (15 Pet. 518) (1841) . . .
Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co. In 1822 Delaware authorized Black Bird Creek Marsh Company to construct a dam across Black Bird Creek, which obstructed navigation there. Thompson Willson, who h . . .
Worcester v. Georgia In 1831 Georgia authorities arrested Samuel A. Worcester, a Congregational minister, for preaching on Cherokee lands without first obtaining a state license to reside on those la . . .