| That the said compact is hereby approved, confirmed and ratified,
and that as soon as the said compact shall be approved, confirmed
and ratified, by the general assembly of the Commonwealth of
Virginia, thereupon, and immediately thereafter, every article,
clause, matter and thing, in the same compact contained, shall be
obligatory on this state and the citizens thereof, and shall be for
ever faithfully and inviolably observed and kept by this
government, and all its citizens, according to the true intent and
meaning of the said compact; and the faith and honour of this state
is hereby solemnly pledged and engaged to the general assembly of
the commonwealth of Virginia, and the government and citizens
thereof, that this law shall never be repealed or altered by this
legislature of this government, without the consent of the
government of Virginia."°
Thomas Stone wrote to General Washington on December 10, 1785, informing him that the
Mount Vernon Compact was ratified without dissent in either House."'
The Virginia legislature ratified the Compact on January 3, 1786."2 The Virginia version
contained a similar enactment clause pledging that the Compact would never be repealed or
altered by the legislature of Virginia "without the consent of the state of Maryland."' 13
The Unresolved Boundary Disputes
The Compact did not settle any of the complex boundary issues between Virginia and
Maryland, but rather "left the question of boundary open to long continued disputes." Marine
Railway & Coal Co. v. United States, 257 U.S. 47, 64 (1921). Those disputes concerned not
only whether the boundary line was on the north or south bank of the Potomac River, but also the
location of the boundary extending across the Chesapeake Bay and Eastern Shore to the Atlantic,
"° 1785-86 Md. Acts c. I § 2.
"' Wearmouth, supra note 85, at 53.
"` Journal of Virginia House of Delegates (1784), supra note 29, at 128.
"' 1785-86 Va. Acts c. XVII, reprinted in 12 Hening's Statutes at Large 50 (1823).
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