Judicial History 31 tional line, for the purpose of enforcing the criminal laws and regulating the rights of navigation in the Potomac River, was agreed upon. The Compact was thus referred to only as a matter of historical fact, there being no occasion to construe it. K. Marine Railway Company v. United States (1921). In the Marine Railway Company case (257 U. S. 47) , the United States sued to recover possession of a piece of land which lay in the Potomac River in front of the City of Alexandria. The site of the land had been under water until 1910-12, when the United States had constructed a wall on the river bed and dumped behind it earth dredged from the stream. The area thus reclaimed was then en closed by a fence. The Marine Company, having title to the adjoining land inshore and until that time a riparian owner, destroyed the fence and took possession of the re claimed strip. The case finally went to the Supreme Court. The Court cited the original grant to Lord Baltimore and a number of judicial decisions, all of which had de clared Maryland's title (and hence that of the Federal government) to extend to the southern shore of the river. Therefore, it decided, the reclaimed land lying in front of the well established Virginia boundary belongs to the District of Columbia. Brief mention of the Compact was made during the course of the opinion: The Compact between Virginia and Maryland in 1785 also seems to us to have no bearing upon the case. It says nothing about the boundary in terms .... It was a regulation of commerce, and while with a view to opening up a route to the West it provided in Article 6 that the Potomac should be considered as a common highway for the purposes of navigation and commerce to the citizens of Virginia and Mary land, and in Article 7 gave the citizens of each state full property in the shores of the river adjoining their lands and the privilege of carrying out wharves, etc., with a common right of fishing, it left the question of |
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