The Clause 5 Loop
Atlas

20The verdict

Sources

Every page opened

  • 178 pages opened, each with its publisher and the date it was read.
  • Most case passages are quoted from the United States Reports as govinfo scans them, the rest from Justia; the method says which and why.
  • Every quotation matched to its page, character for character.
  • Two period dictionaries were not opened. No grade rests on them.

Every source we used, with a link to it.

What the grades meannine grades, from the firmest to the weakest
  1. statedThe source says it in its own words, and the study quotes them.
  2. it followsLogic alone gets there from what is stated, and a computer solver checks the step.
  3. strong supportThe evidence for it far outweighs the evidence against it.
  4. moderate supportMore of the evidence points for it than against it, but real evidence points the other way.
  5. one readingThe words allow it but do not require it; another reading fits them as well.
  6. left openThe evidence does not settle it either way.
  7. weak supportSome evidence points for it, but more points against it.
  8. not shownIt is claimed, but the record does not establish it.
  9. ruled outThe words or the logic exclude it.

A chain is only as good as its weakest link: a conclusion never gets a better grade than the weakest step it needs.

Read in full4,290 words · the study as written

Every page the study opened is listed here with its publisher and the date it was retrieved, 178 in all. A transcription is named as one. An opinion of the Supreme Court read on both the United States Reports and Justia is listed at both; which page each passage follows is set out in the method (§ 11). Gavin’s three texts and his rulings are quoted whole in the texts section.

Pages opened

Data pages

Not opened

Two dictionaries of the period are not opened: Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and Webster’s New International Dictionary (1909). Section II of the Revenue Act of 1913 is read as Lynch v. Hornby (1918) quotes it, with the Court’s omissions. No grade in the study rests on a source that is not opened.