Judicial History 29 offense was committed in Pocomoke Sound, and that the eighth article of the Compact mentioned only Pocomoke River, so that the Compact could not in any event be appli cable, as the two are separate and distinct bodies of water. The Court's decision in the Wharton case was that the Compact had no application to the particular facts. In effect, it said, the Compact need not be considered in the case. It therefore is not certain what was the object of the Court in prefacing its decision with a long discussion of the origin and legal effect of the Compact. In the light of the actual decision, perhaps all of this initial portion of the opinion was dicta. Mr. Justice Field, who wrote the opinion for the Su preme Court, first considered whether the Compact had been adopted agreeably to the provisions of the Articles of Confederation, which among other things regulated the relations of the several states from 1777 until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. On this point, the Articles of Confederation provided (Art. 6) No two or more states shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue. It was conceded that Congress under the Articles of Confederation had never consented to the adoption of the Compact. However, the Court reasoned that this provision was aimed at preventing unions among the states designed to weaken the league among the whole, and that it was not meant to interfere with such agreements as the Com pact, the workings of which were to facilitate the free intercourse of citizens between these two states. The Com pact, said the Court, was not such a treaty, confederation or alliance as was meant by Article 6 of the Articles of Confederation. And, the requirement in the present Fed eral Constitution (Art. 1, sec. 10) that "no state shall, with- |
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