22 	The Compact of 1785

of the decision seemed almost to give to the Compact the
force of constitutional law, or at least to place it on a plane
somewhere above that of statutory law. Yet in a case such
as this, involving a Maryland citizen and a purely local
situation, the Compact might have been construed as no
more than ch. 1 of 1785. As such, it had engaged Maryland
to pass Potomac River fishing laws only with the mutual
consent and approbation of Virginia, but had not attempted
to say that any law not so passed should be without effect.
And, if the Compact were construed as simply ch. 1 of
1785, it was as open to amendment or repeal (even by
necessary implication) as any other legislative act.

	The Court said nothing in its opinion about the power,
	or lack of power, of the State of Maryland to change the
	Compact. Unless it was prepared to give to the Compact
	something more than the legal force of an act of the Mary
	land Legislature, and that is all the legal sanction ever
	placed behind it in Maryland, there was no compelling
	reason for giving it a controlling power over a subsequent
	enactment. Also, that controlling power was on a techni
	cality; Virginia as a matter of fact had passed a similar
	statute; the only omission was that the indictment had not
	specifically averred that fact.

	However, the rule of the case was definite: an indictment
	for a violation of a fishing law must aver that Virginia
	has assented to the law.

	One other interesting question can be raised about the
	Hoofman case. The law under which he was indicted was
	aimed at the protection of fish going to shoal water to
	spawn. Some of the fish actually go up to fresh water,
	above the ebb and flow of the tide, and they may be
	caught there. Logically, therefore, the law must have
	covered parts of the Potomac above tidewater, though
	Hoofman himself was violating the law in tidewater
	(Charles County). Binney's case had earlier established
	the rule that the Compact relates only to tidewater por-