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-