UNITED STATES V. LOUISIANA, 363 U. S. 1 (1960)
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U.S. Supreme Court
United States v. Louisiana, 363 U.S. 1 (1960)
United States v. Louisiana
No. 10, Original
Argued October 12-15, 1959
Decided May 31, 1960
363 U.S. 1
ON MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS
Syllabus
Invoking the original jurisdiction of this Court under Art. III, § 2 of the Constitution, the United States brought suit against the States of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, seeking a declaration that it is entitled to exclusive possession of, and full dominion and power over, the lands, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the waters of the Gulf of Mexico more than three geographical miles seaward from the coast of each State and extending to the edge of the Continental Shelf. It also asked that the States be enjoined from interfering with the rights of the United States in that area, and that they be required to account for all sums of money derived by them therefrom since June 5, 1950.
Held:
1. The Submerged Lands Act grants to each coastal State the ownership of submerged lands within three geographical miles from its coast, but no boundary in excess of three miles was fixed ipso facto for any State. Pp. 363 U. S. 13, 363 U. S. 20-25.
2. The Act preserved the right of each Gulf State to prove boundaries extending more than three geographical miles (but not more than three marine leagues) into the Gulf, but each State must establish the existence of such a boundary in judicial proceedings. Pp. 363 U. S. 25-26.
3. To satisfy the requirements of the Act, a State's seaward boundary beyond three geographical miles from its coast must be one which, by virtue of congressional action, would have been
legally effective to carry, as between the State and the Nation, submerged land rights under the doctrine of @ 44 U. S. 24-36.
4. The fact that, in the field of foreign relations, the policy of the Executive Branch of the Government may have been to refuse to assert territorial jurisdiction more than three miles from shore would not impair the effectiveness of a State's seaward boundary fixed by Congress more than three miles from shore, so far as the purely domestic purposes of the Submerged Lands Act are concerned. Pp. 363 U. S. 30-36.
5. Texas having claimed a maritime boundary at three marine leagues from her coast when she was an independent republic prior to admission to the Union, and this boundary having been confirmed pursuant to the Annexation Resolution of 1845, Texas is entitled, under the Submerged Lands Act, to a grant of three marine leagues from her coast for domestic purposes. Pp. 363 U. S. 36-65.
6. Louisiana is entitled to submerged land rights to a distance no greater than three geographical miles from its coastlines, wherever those lines may ultimately be shown to be. Pp. 363 U. S. 66-79.
7. Mississippi is not entitled to rights in submerged lands lying beyond three geographical miles from its coast. Pp. 363 U. S. 79-82.
8. Alabama is not entitled to rights in submerged lands lying beyond three geographical miles from its coast. P. 363 U. S. 82.
9. As to the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, a decree will be entered (1) declaring that the United States is entitled, as against these States, to all the lands, minerals and other natural resources underlying the Gulf of Mexico more than three geographical miles from the coast of each such State, that is, from the line of ordinary low-water mark and outer limit of inland waters, and extending seaward to the edge of the Continental Shelf; (2) declaring that none of these States is entitled to any interest in such lands, minerals and resources; (3) enjoining these States from interfering with the rights of the United States therein; (4) directing each such State appropriately to account to the United States for all sums of money derived therefrom subsequent to June 5, 1950; and (5) dismissing Alabama's cross-bill. P. 363 U. S. 83.
10. As to the State of Texas, a decree will be entered (1) declaring that the State is entitled, as against the United States, to the lands, minerals and other natural resources underlying the Gulf of Mexico to a distance of three marine leagues from Texas' coast, that is, from the line of ordinary low-water mark and outer limit of inland waters; (2) declaring that the United States is entitled, as against Texas, to no interest therein; (3) declaring that the United States is entitled, as against Texas, to all such lands, minerals and resources lying beyond that area and extending to the edge of the Continental Shelf; (4) enjoining the State from interfering with the rights of the United States therein; and (5) directing Texas appropriately to account to the United States for all sums of money derived since June 5, 1950, from the area to which the United States is declared to be entitled. P. 363 U. S. 84.
11. Jurisdiction is retained for such further proceedings as may be necessary to effectuate the rights herein adjudicated. P. 363 U. S. 84.
12. The motions of Louisiana and Mississippi to take depositions are denied, without prejudice to their renewal in such further proceedings as may be had in connection with matters left open by this opinion. Pp. 363 U. S. 84-85.
13. The same disposition is made of the similar averment in Alabama's answer. P. 363 U. S. 84, n. 142.
14. Texas' motion for similar relief and for a severance is rendered moot by the decision as to it. P. 363 U. S. 84, n. 142.
15. The alternative motion of Louisiana, contained in its answer to the original complaint, to transfer the case as to it to the United States District Court in Louisiana is denied. P. 363 U. S. 85, n. 143.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States, invoking our original jurisdiction under Art. III, § 2, of the Constitution, brought this suit against the States of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama,
and Florida, seeking a declaration that it is entitled to exclusive possession of, and full dominion and power over, the lands, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the waters of the Gulf of Mexico more than three geographical miles seaward from the coast of each State and extending to the edge of the Continental Shelf. [Footnote 1] The complaint also asks that the States be enjoined from interfering with the rights of the United States in that area, and that they be required to account for all sums of money derived by them therefrom since June 5, 1950. [Footnote 2] The case is now before us on the motions of the United States for judgment on the pleadings and for dismissal of Alabama's cross-bill seeking to establish its rights to such submerged lands and resources within three marine leagues of its coast.
The controversy is another phase of the more than 20 years' dispute between the coastal States and the Federal Government over their respective rights to exploit the oil and other natural resources of offshore submerged lands. In 1947, this Court held that, as against California, the United States possessed paramount rights in such lands underlying the Pacific Ocean seaward of the low-water mark on the coast of California and outside of inland waters. United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, 332 U. S. 804. And, on June 5, 1950, the Court, following the principles announced in the California case, made like holdings with respect to submerged lands in the Gulf of Mexico similarly lying off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, and directed both States to account to the United States for all sums derived from natural resources in those areas after that date. United States v. Louisiana, 339 U. S. 699; 340 U. S. 340
U.S. 899; United States v. Texas, 339 U. S. 707; 340 U. S. 340 U.S. 900. [Footnote 3]
On May 22, 1953, Congress, following earlier repeated unsuccessful attempts at legislation dealing with state and federal rights in submerged lands, [Footnote 4] passed the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1315. By that Act, the United States relinquished to the coastal States all of its rights in such lands within certain geographical limits, and confirmed its own rights
therein beyond those limits. The Act was sustained in Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S. 272, as a constitutional exercise of Congress' power to dispose of federal property, Const.Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. Since the Act concededly did not impair the validity of the California, Louisiana, and Texas cases, which are admittedly applicable to all coastal States, this case draws in question only the geographic extent to which the statute ceded to the States the federal rights established by those decisions.
The purposes of the Submerged Lands Act are described in its title as follows:
"To confirm and establish the titles of the States to lands beneath navigable waters within State boundaries and to the natural resources within such lands and waters, to provide for the use and control of said lands and resources, and to confirm the jurisdiction and control of the United States over the natural resources of the seabed of the Continental Shelf seaward of State boundaries."
To effectuate these purposes the Act, in pertinent part --
1. relinquishes to the States the entire interest of the United States in all lands beneath navigable waters within state boundaries (§ 3, 43 U.S.C. § 1311); [Footnote 5]
2. defines that area in terms of state boundaries "as they existed at the time (a) State became a member of the
Union, or as heretofore approved by the Congress," not extending, however, seaward from the coast of any State more than three marine leagues [Footnote 6] in the Gulf of Mexico or more than three geographical miles in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (§ 2, 43 U.S.C. § 1301); [Footnote 7]
3. confirms to each State a seaward boundary of three geographical miles, without
"questioning or in any manner prejudicing the existence of any State's seaward boundary beyond three geographical miles if it was so provided by its constitution or laws prior to or at the time such State became a member of the Union, or if it has
been heretofore approved by Congress"
(§ 4, 43 U.S.C. § 1312); [Footnote 8] and
4. For purposes of commerce, navigation, national defense, and international affairs, reserves to the United States all constitutional powers of regulation and control over the areas within which the proprietary interests of the States are recognized (§ 6(a), 43 U.S.C. § 1314); [Footnote 9] and retains in the United States all rights in submerged lands lying beyond those areas to the seaward limits of the Continental Shelf (§ 9, 43 U.S.C. § 1302). [Footnote 10]
The United States concedes that the statute grants to each of the defendant States submerged land rights in the Gulf of Mexico to the extent of three geographical miles, but contends that none of them is entitled to anything more. The States, conceding that three leagues is the limit of the statute's grant in the Gulf contend that each of them is entitled to that much. The wide-ranging arguments of the parties, reflecting, no doubt, the magnitude of the economic interests at stake, [Footnote 11] can be reduced to the following basic contentions:
The Government starts with the premise that the Act grants submerged land rights to a distance of more than three miles only to the extent that a Gulf State can show, in accordance with § 2(b) of the Act, either that it had a legally established seaward boundary in excess of three miles at the time of its admission to the Union or that such a boundary was thereafter approved for it by Congress prior to the passage of the Submerged Lands Act. It is contended that the Act did not purport to determine, fix, or change the boundary of any State, but left it to the courts to ascertain whether a particular State had a seaward boundary meeting either of these requirements. The Government then urges, as to any State relying on its original seaward boundary, that the Act contemplates as the measure of the grant a boundary which existed subsequent to a State's admission to the
Union, and not one which existed only prior to admission -- in other words, a boundary carrying the legal consequences of the event of admission. It reasons from this that, since a State's seaward boundary cannot be greater than the national maritime boundary, and since the national boundary was at all relevant times never greater than three miles, no State could have had a seaward boundary in excess of three miles, regardless of what it may have claimed prior to admission. Further, the Government undertakes to show that, irrespective of the extent of the national maritime boundary, none of these States ever had a valid seaward boundary in excess of three miles, even prior to admission, and that no such boundary was thereafter approved by Congress for any State.
The States, on the other hand, make several alternative arguments. At one extreme, they contend that the Submerged Lands Act ipso facto makes a three-league grant to all the Gulf States, or at least that the Act by its terms establishes the seaward boundary of some States, notably Texas and Florida at three leagues. Alternatively, they argue that, if the extent of such state boundaries "at the time" of admission was left to judicial determination, then the controlling inquiry is what seaward boundary each State had just prior to admission. If, however, the Act contemplates a boundary as fixed by the event of admission, each State contends that Congress fixed for it a three-league Gulf boundary, and that whatever may have been the extent of the national maritime boundary at the time is an irrelevant factor. Florida further contends that, when it was readmitted to the Union in 1868, Congress approved for it a three-league Gulf boundary. And, finally, the States argue that, if the national boundary is in any way relevant, it has at all material times in fact been at three leagues in the Gulf of Mexico.
Both sides have presented in support of their respective positions a massive array of historical documents, of which
we take judicial notice, and substantially agree that all the issues tendered can properly be disposed of on the basis of the pleadings and such documents.
In this opinion, we consider the issues arising in common between the Government and all the defendant States, and the particular claims of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, all of which depend upon their original admission boundaries. The particular claims of Florida, which involve primarily its readmission boundary, are considered in a separate opinion. 363 U. S. 363 U.S. 121.
I
THE COMMON ISSUES
A. The Statute On Its Face
The States' contention that the Act ipso facto grants them submerged land rights of three leagues in the Gulf may be shortly answered. The terms of the statute require rejection of such a construction. Rather, the measure of the grant in excess of three miles is made to depend entirely upon the location of a State's original or later Congressionally approved maritime boundary, subject only to the three-league limitation of the grant.
We turn next to the question whether, as the States contend, the first of the two alternative requirements of § 2 -- a boundary which "existed at the time such State became a member of the Union" -- is satisfied merely by a showing a preadmission boundary, or whether, as the Government claims, that requirement contemplates only a boundary that carries the legal consequences of the event of admission. While it is manifest that the second requirement of § 2 -- a boundary which was "heretofore approved by the Congress" -- must take into account the effect of Congressional action, it is not clear from the face of the statute that the same is true of the first requirement -- a
boundary "as it existed at the time [a] State became a member of the Union."
The Government argues that, in construing the first requirement of § 2, the effect of Congressional action cannot be ignored, because to do so would be to measure the boundary prior to the time a State became a member of the Union, and "at the time" cannot mean "prior to the time." However, it might be contended with equal force that to take account of the effect of Congressional action would be to measure the boundary after the time the State became a member of the Union, and "at the time" cannot mean "after the time." Indeed, if "at the time" were to be taken in a perfectly literal sense, it could refer only to the timeless instant before which the consequences of not being a State would obtain, and after which the consequences of statehood would follow, leaving unanswered the question whether the effect of Congressional action was to be considered or not. In short, if the term is to be given content, it must be read as referring either to some time before or after the instant of admission, or to both times.
As an aid to construction of "at the time" in § 2, the Government points to § 4, the last sentence of which states:
"Nothing in this section is to be construed as questioning or in any manner prejudicing the existence of any State's seaward boundary beyond three geographical miles if it was so provided by its constitution or laws prior to or at the time such State became a member of the Union, or if it has been heretofore approved by Congress."
(Emphasis supplied.) It is urged that the disjunctive use of the terms "prior to" and "at the time" shows that the latter must have been used to refer to the time after admission, since the phraseology would otherwise be redundant, and that such meaning should also be attributed to the same term in § 2,
thereby including the effect of Congressional action. But, as has already been indicated, "at the time" inherently can also be taken as referring to the preadmission period, thereby excluding the effect of such action. And, on that basis, there would be no redundancy in the phrase "prior to or at the time" if "at the time" meant immediately before the instant of admission and "prior to" referred to times substantially prior to admission; yet this would nonetheless exclude the effect of Congressional action. So far as the statute itself is concerned, the Government's argument is thus inconclusive.
Nor do the States' arguments upon the face of the statute illumine the meaning of "at the time" as used in § 2. They contend that the meaning of § 2 is explained or clarified by the last sentence of § 4. According to them, a boundary "existed at the time [a] State became a member of the Union" (§ 2) if "it was so provided by its constitution or laws prior to or at the time such State became a member of the Union. . . ." § 4. Under this view, whatever the meaning of "at the time," the existence of a state constitutional or statutory three-league provision prior to admission would conclusively establish the boundary contemplated by the Act, irrespective of the character of Congressional action upon admission. However, this provision appears not in the definitional or granting sections of the statute (§§ 2 or 3), but in § 4, the purpose of which is to approve and confirm the boundaries of all States at three miles, and to negative any prejudice which might thereby result to claims in excess of three miles. It thus does not define the grant, but, at most, describes the claims protected from prejudice by § 4 in terms of their most likely nature. A fair reading of the section does not point to the conclusion that claims of this nature were deemed to be self-proving.
Finally, there is no indication on the face of the statute whether the Executive policy of the United States on the
extent of territorial waters is a relevant circumstance in ascertaining the location of state seaward boundaries for purposes of the Act.
Because the statute, on its face, is inconclusive as to these issues, we turn to the legislative history.
B. The Legislative History
This Court early held that the 13 original States, by virtue of the sovereignty acquired through revolution against the Crown, owned the lands beneath navigable inland waters within their territorial boundaries, and that each subsequently admitted State acquired similar rights as an inseparable attribute of the equal sovereignty guaranteed to it upon admission. Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212. [Footnote 12] It was assumed by many, and not without reason, [Footnote 13] that the same rule would be applied to lands beneath navigable waters of the marginal sea, that is, beyond low-water mark and the outer limit of inland waters. However, beginning in the 1930's, the Federal Government, while conceding the validity of the Pollard rule as to inland waters, disputed its applicability to submerged lands beyond that limit, and claimed ownership
of those lands for the United States. [Footnote 14] The controversy centered primarily on the ownership of the oil-rich submerged lands off the coast of California. The State maintained that its original constitution, adopted in 1849, before it was admitted to the Union, established a seaward boundary three English miles from the coast, [Footnote 15] that this boundary was ratified by the Act of Congress admitting it to the Union, and that therefore, under the Pollard rule, it was entitled to all submerged lands lying within three English miles of its coast. This Court refused so to apply Pollard, and held in the California case and the subsequent Louisiana and Texas cases, supra, that paramount rights in the marginal sea are an attribute of national, rather than state, sovereignty, irrespective of the location of state seaward boundaries.
Meanwhile, an extended series of attempts was underway to secure Congressional legislation vesting in the States the ownership of those lands which would be theirs under an application of the Pollard rule to the marginal sea. [Footnote 16] It was strongly urged, both before and after the
California decision, that, because the States had for many years relied on the applicability of the Pollard rule to the marginal sea, it was just and equitable that they be definitively given the rights which follow from such an application of the rule, and the California, Louisiana, and Texas cases were severely criticized for not having so applied it. [Footnote 17]
Thus, virtually every "quitclaim" measure introduced between 1945 and 1953, when the Submerged Lands Act was ultimately enacted, framed the grant in terms of "lands beneath navigable waters within State boundaries." This framework was employed because the sponsors understood this Court to have established, prior to the California decision, a rule of state ownership itself defined in
terms of state territorial boundaries, whether located at or below low-water mark. [Footnote 18] Since, however, none of the cases which had applied that rule involved lands below low-water mark, and since the California and subsequent Louisiana and Texas cases adopted for such lands a rule which does not depend upon state boundaries, this Court has never had occasion to consider the precise nature and method of determining state territorial boundaries in the open sea, such as would circumscribe the extent of state ownership of offshore lands under an application of the Pollard rule. Because Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional power to dispose of federal property, has chosen so to frame its grant, we are now called on to resolve such questions in light of the Act's history and purposes.
1. Confirmation of All Boundaries at Three Miles.
From the very outset, the sponsors of "quitclaim" legislation believed that all States were entitled to at least three miles of coastal submerged lands. [Footnote 19] The earliest bills confirmed to the States all lands beneath navigable waters within their boundaries, and defined "lands beneath navigable waters" to include at least all lands lying within three geographical miles of the coast of each State. [Footnote 20] However, they contained no definition of
"boundaries," and it was apparently assumed that the boundaries of all States extended at least three miles. [Footnote 21] Opponents of such legislation quickly pointed out that, while California based its three-mile claim on an expressly defined maritime boundary, many, if not most, of the coastal States lacked such a boundary, [Footnote 22] and that, therefore, such States could not avail themselves of the Pollard rule, the applicability of which is restricted to areas within the actual territorial boundaries of the State, even assuming the rule to be capable of application beyond low-water mark. [Footnote 23] Proponents of the legislation alleged it to be
defective in that it granted only those lands beneath navigable waters which lay within state boundaries, and that this Court, in the California case, while not expressly passing on the question, had cast doubt on whether any of the original States ever had a boundary beyond its coast. [Footnote 24] As a result, a new section was added, substantially similar to the second and third sentences of § 4 of the present Act (see note 8 ante), which permitted each State which had not already done so to extend its boundary seaward three miles and approved all such extensions theretofore or thereafter made, without prejudice to any State's claim that its boundary extended beyond three miles. [Footnote 25]
It is not entirely clear on what theory Congress thus concluded that each State owned the submerged lands within three miles of its coast, irrespective of the existence of an expressly defined seaward boundary to that distance. It was substantially agreed that the 13 original Colonies owned the lands within three miles of their coasts because of their sovereignty and the alleged international custom which permitted a nation to extend its territorial jurisdiction that far. [Footnote 26] Some proponents of the legislation seem to have concluded that, therefore, not only did the
original States retain such rights after formation of the Union, but that subsequently admitted States acquired similar rights within three miles, irrespective of the location of their boundaries, by the operation of the equal footing clause. [Footnote 27] It was also suggested that state ownership within three miles came about by operation of federal law because of the Federal Government's assumed adherence to the three-mile limit of territorial waters. [Footnote 28] While some speakers maintained that these factors, in effect, gave each State a three-mile maritime boundary, [Footnote 29] others eschewed technical reliance on the matter of boundaries, and thought it sufficient that the Pollard rule had always been thought to confer ownership on the lands within three miles of the coast, and that the States ought to be restored to the position they believed they had formerly occupied. [Footnote 30] And there is some suggestion
that, since many States, under the Congressional view of Pollard, had indisputable claims to three miles of submerged lands, the remainder ought to be treated on a parity whether or not their claims were technically justified. [Footnote 31] The upshot of all of these differing views was the confirmation of each coastal State's seaward boundary at three geographical miles.
2. Boundaries Beyond Three Miles.
Whatever may have been the uncertainty attending the relevance of state boundaries with respect to rights in submerged lands within three miles of the coast, we find a clear understanding by Congress that the question of rights beyond three miles turned on the existence of an expressly defined state boundary beyond three miles. Congress was aware that several States claimed such a boundary. Texas throughout repeatedly asserted its claim that, when an independent republic, its statutes established a three-league maritime boundary, and that the United States ratified that boundary when Texas was admitted to the Union, and permitted Texas to retain its own public lands. [Footnote 32] Florida repeatedly asserted its claim that, subsequent to its secession at the time of the Civil War, it framed a constitution which established a three-league boundary along its Gulf coast, and that such boundary was ratified when Congress, in 1868, 15 Stat. 73, approved
the State's constitution and readmitted it to the Union. [Footnote 33] Louisiana asserted that the Act of Congress admitting it to the Union in 1812, 2 Stat. 701, fixed for it a three-league maritime boundary by virtue of the provision which includes within the State "all islands within three leagues of the coast." [Footnote 34] And it was suggested that Mississippi and Alabama might claim boundaries six leagues in the Gulf because of similar provisions in the Acts admitting them to the Union. [Footnote 35]
It was recognized that, if the legal existence of such boundaries could be established, they would clearly entitle the respective States to submerged land rights to that distance under an application of the Pollard rule to the marginal sea. Hence, while a three-mile boundary was expressly confirmed for all coastal States, the right of the Gulf States to prove boundaries in excess of three miles was preserved. This treatment of the matter was carried into all the numerous "quitclaim" bills by language similar to that found in § 4 of the present Act, confirming all coastal state boundaries at three miles and negating any prejudice to boundary claims in excess of that. [Footnote 36] Repeated expressions of the Act's sponsors make it absolutely clear that no boundary in excess of three miles was fixed for any State, but that a State would have to establish the existence of such a boundary in judicial proceedings. [Footnote 37]
The many individual expressions of views as to the location of particular state boundaries -- notably, statements that the effect of the Act would be to give Texas and Florida three leagues of submerged land rights [Footnote 38] -- while undoubtedly representing the sincere beliefs of the speakers, cannot serve to relieve this Court from making an independent judicial inquiry and adjudication on the subject, as contemplated by Congress.
The earlier "quitclaim" bills defined the grant in terms of presently existing boundaries, [Footnote 39] since such boundaries would have circumscribed the lands owned by the States under an application of Pollard to the marginal sea. However, the sponsors of these measures soon recognized that present boundaries could be ascertained only by reference to historic events. The claims advanced by the Gulf States during consideration of earlier bills were identical to those subsequently asserted. [Footnote 40] The theory of those claims, as we have noted, depended either, as in the cases of Texas and Florida, upon a constitutional or statutory provision allegedly ratified by Congressional acquiescence, or, as in the cases of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, upon express Congressional action. Indeed, it could hardly have been contended that Congressional action surrounding the event of admission was not relevant to the
determination of present boundaries. Some suggestions were made, however, that States might, by their own action, have effectively extended, or be able to extend, their boundaries subsequent to admission. [Footnote 41] To exclude the possibility that States might be able to establish present boundaries based on extravagant unilateral extensions, such as those recently made by Texas and Louisiana, [Footnote 42] subsequent drafts of the bill introduced the twofold test of the present Act -- boundaries which existed at the time of admission and boundaries heretofore approved by Congress. [Footnote 43] It is apparent that the purpose of the change was not to alter the basic theory of the grant, but to assure that the determination of boundaries would be made in
accordance with that theory -- that the States should be "restored" to the ownership of submerged lands within their present boundaries, determined, however, by the historic action taken with respect to them jointly by Congress and the State. [Footnote 44] It was such action that the framers of this legislation conceived to fix the States' boundaries
against subsequent change without their consent, and therefore to confer upon them the longstanding equities which the measure was intended to recognize. [Footnote 45]
We conclude, therefore, that the States' contention that preadmission boundaries, standing alone, suffice to meet the requirements of the statute is not tenable.
3. The Question of Executive Policy Respecting the "Three-Mile Limit."
During consideration of the various "quitclaim" bills between 1945 and 1953, the suggestion that international questions might be raised by the bill constantly recurred. It was asserted that the United States might be embarrassed in its dealings with other nations, first, by permitting States to exercise rights in submerged lands beyond three miles, [Footnote 49] and, second, by recognizing that the boundaries of some States might extend beyond three miles from the coast. [Footnote 50] The first objection was laid to rest by the
testimony of Jack B. Tate, Deputy Legal Adviser to the State Department. Mr. Tate stated that exploitation of submerged lands involved a jurisdiction of a very special and limited character, and he assured the Committee that assertion of such a jurisdiction beyond three miles would not conflict with international law or the traditional United States position on the extent of territorial waters. He concluded that, since the United States had already asserted exclusive rights in the Continental Shelf as against the world, the question to what extent those rights were to be exercised by the Federal Government and to what extent by the States was one of wholly domestic concern within the power of Congress to resolve. [Footnote 51]
The second objection, however -- that to recognize by the Act the possible existence of some state maritime boundaries beyond three miles would embarrass this country in its dealings with other nations -- was persistently pressed by the State Department and by opponents of the bill. The bill's supporters consistently took the position that, under the Pollard rule as they understood it, the extent of a State's submerged land rights in excess of three miles depended entirely upon the location of its maritime boundary as fixed by historical events, [Footnote 52] and that, to the extent a State's boundary had been so fixed beyond three miles, it constituted an exception to this country's assumed adherence to the three-mile limit. The admission of Texas and the readmission of Florida
were repeatedly asserted as instances where Congress had made exceptions to the three-mile policy, purportedly based on the shallowness of waters in the Gulf and the alleged Spanish custom of claiming three leagues of territorial waters. [Footnote 53]
The State Department, confronted with this argument, tenaciously maintained that it had never recognized any boundaries in excess of three miles. [Footnote 54] It insisted that, by virtue of federal supremacy in the field of foreign relations, the territorial claims of the States could not exceed those of the Nation, and that, therefore, if the bill recognized the effectiveness of the relied-on historical events to fix boundaries beyond three miles despite the State Department's refusal so to recognize them, the bill would violate this country's consistent foreign policy. The Government now urges in this case a closely similar contention. It says that the Submerged Lands Act did not establish any formula for the ascertainment of state boundaries, but left them to be judicially determined, and that, because of federal supremacy in the field of foreign relations, this Court must hold that the Executive policy of claiming no more than three miles of territorial waters -- allegedly in force at all relevant times, and evidenced by the State Department's consistent refusal to recognize boundaries in excess of three miles -- worked a
decisive limitation upon the extent of all state maritime boundaries for purposes of this Act. [Footnote 55]
We agree that the Submerged Lands Act does not contain any formula to be followed in the judicial ascertainment of state boundaries, and that, therefore, we must determine, as an independent matter, whether boundaries, for purposes of the Act, are to be taken as fixed by historical events such as those pointed to in the Congressional hearings and debates, or whether they must be regarded as limited by Executive policy on the extent of territorial waters, as contended by the Government. However, in light of the purely domestic purposes of the Act, we see no irreconcilable conflict between the Executive policy relied on by the Government and the historical events claimed to have fixed seaward boundaries for some States in excess of three miles. We think that the Government's contentions on this score rest on an oversimplification of the problem.
A land boundary between two States is an easily understood concept. It marks the place where the full sovereignty of one State ends and that of the other begins. The concept of a boundary in the sea, however, is a more elusive one. The high seas, as distinguished from inland waters, are generally conceded by modern nations to be
subject to the exclusive sovereignty of no single nation. [Footnote 56] It is recognized, however, that a nation may extend its national authority into the adjacent sea to a limited distance for various purposes. For hundreds of years, nations have asserted the right to fish, to control smuggling, and to enforce sanitary measures within varying distances from their seacoasts. [Footnote 57] Early in this country's history, the modern notion had begun to develop that a country is entitled to full territorial jurisdiction over a belt of waters adjoining its coast. [Footnote 58] However, even this jurisdiction is limited by the right of foreign vessels to innocent passage. [Footnote 59] The extent to which a nation can extend its power into the sea for any purpose is subject to the consent of other nations, and assertions of jurisdiction to different distances may be recognized for different purposes. [Footnote 60] In a manner of speaking, a nation which purports to exercise any rights to a given distance in the sea may be said to have a maritime boundary at that distance. But such a boundary, even if it delimits territorial waters, confers rights more limited than a land boundary. It is only in a very special sense, therefore, that the foreign policy of this country respecting the limit of territorial waters results in the establishment of a "national boundary."
The power to admit new States resides in Congress. The President, on the other hand, is the constitutional representative of the United States in its dealings with foreign nations. From the former springs the power to establish state boundaries; from the latter comes the power to determine how far this country will claim territorial rights in the marginal sea as against other nations. Any such determination is, of course, binding on the States. The exercise of Congress' power to admit new States, while it may have international consequences, also entails consequences as between Nation and State. We need not decide whether action by Congress fixing a State's territorial boundary more than three miles beyond its coast constitutes an overriding determination that the State, and therefore this country, are to claim that much territory against foreign nations. It is sufficient for present purposes to note that there is no question of Congress' power to fix state land and water boundaries as a domestic matter. Such a boundary, fully effective as between Nation and State, undoubtedly circumscribes the extent of navigable inland waters and underlying lands owned by the State under the Pollard rule. Were that rule applicable also to the marginal sea -- the premise on which Congress proceeded in enacting the Submerged Lands Act -- it is clear that such a boundary would be similarly effective to circumscribe the extent of submerged lands beyond low-water mark, and within the limits of the Continental Shelf, owned by the State. For, as the Government readily concedes, the right to exercise jurisdiction and control over the seabed and subsoil of the Continental Shelf is not internationally restricted by the limit of territorial waters.
We conclude that, consonant with the purpose of Congress to grant to the States subject to the three-league limitation, the lands they would have owned had the Pollard rule been held applicable to the marginal sea, a
state territorial boundary beyond three miles is established for purposes of the Submerged Lands Act by Congressional action so fixing it, irrespective of the limit of territorial waters. We turn now to the task of ascertaining what boundary was was so fixed for each of the defendant States.
II
THE PARTICULAR CLAIMS OF TEXAS
Texas, the only one of the defendant States which had the status of an independent nation immediately prior to its admission, contends that it had a three-league maritime boundary which "existed at the time [it] became a member of the Union" in 1845. Whether that is so for the purposes of the Submerged Lands Act depends upon a proper construction of the Congressional action admitting the State to the Union.
Texas declared its independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836, 1 Laws, Republic of Texas, 3-7, Vernon's Ann.St.Const. and on December 19, 1836, the Texan Congress passed an Act to define its boundaries, which were described in part as
"beginning at the mouth of the Sabine river, and running west along the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from land, to the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence up the principal stream of said river. . . ."
Id., 133. (Emphasis added.) See diagram at p. 363 U. S. 65. [Footnote 61]
In March, 1837, this country recognized the Republic of Texas. [Footnote 62] On April 25, 1838, the United States entered into a convention with the Republic to establish a boundary between the two countries and to provide for a survey of part of it. [Footnote 63] On April 12, 1844, President Tyler concluded a Treaty of Annexation with the Republic, but on June 8, 1844, the Senate refused to rectify it. [Footnote 64] On March 1, 1845, President Tyler signed a Joint Resolution of Congress for the annexation of Texas, which provided:
"That Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to, the Republic of Texas, may be erected into a new State, to be called the Texas. . . . Said State to be formed, subject to the adjustment by this government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments. . . . [Footnote 65]"
(Emphasis added.) Pursuant to this Resolution, the people of Texas adopted a constitution which was submitted to Congress, and, by Joint Resolution of December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the Union in accordance with the terms of the previous Joint Resolution. [Footnote 66] The 1836 Texas Boundary Act remained in force up to the time of admission,
and the State Constitution expressly continued in force from that time forward all laws of the Republic not repugnant to the Federal or State Constitution or the Joint Resolution of Annexation. [Footnote 67]
The Government, while conceding that Texas continuously asserted by statute a three-league seaward boundary, contends that at no time before, during, or after admission did the United States or any other country recognize the validity of that boundary. It follows, therefore, the Government says, that, since Texas, upon entering the Union, became subject to the foreign policy of the United States with respect to the "three-mile limit," the State's seaward boundary became immediately and automatically fixed at three miles. Texas, on the other hand, argues that it effectively established, and that the United States repeatedly recognized, the State's three-league boundary before, during, and after admission, and that therefore such a boundary existed "at the time" of its admission within the meaning of the Submerged Lands Act. For reasons already discussed, ante, p. 363 U. S. 24-36, we consider that the only relevant inquiry is what boundary was fixed for the Texas by virtue of the Congressional action admitting it to the Union in accordance with the terms of the Joint Resolution of March 1, 1845. This inquiry first takes us back to some earlier history.
By the Treaty of Paris, signed April 30, 1803, [Footnote 68] France ceded to the United States the Louisiana Territory. The extent of the territory thus conveyed was left uncertain, the description in the Treaty referring only to a previous treaty by which France had acquired the territory from Spain, which, in turn, described the area only as "the colony or province of Louisiana." [Footnote 69] It was asserted by
some that the territory acquired did not stop at the Sabine River -- the present boundary between the States of Louisiana and Texas -- but extended westward to the Rio Grande, so as to include Texas. [Footnote 70] However, by the Treaty of February 22, 1819, between the United States and Spain, the boundary line between the two countries was established at the Sabine. [Footnote 71] Those who had believed that the Louisiana Territory extended west of the Sabine decried this Treaty as a breach of faith by the United States in violation of the covenant in the 1803 Treaty which required the inhabitants of all the Louisiana Territory to be incorporated as soon as possible into the Union. [Footnote 72] Subsequently, the United States attempted unsuccessfully on several occasions to acquire the territory west of the Sabine by purchase. [Footnote 73]
Meanwhile, Mexico had revolted from Spain, had been recognized by this country in 1822, and had proclaimed a federal constitution in 1824. Texas was made part of the compound province of Coahuila-Texas, with the indication that it would eventually be given a separate constitution as a sovereign state. After a series of difficulties with the central government, however, Texas, in
1836, proclaimed its own independence from Mexico. It immediately sent diplomatic representatives to the United States to negotiate for annexation, but nothing was consummated at that time. [Footnote 74] Shortly thereafter, it promulgated the 1836 boundary statute referred to above.
It was against this background that President Tyler negotiated and sent to the Senate the 1844 Treaty for the annexation of Texas. That document provided:
"The Republic of Texas . . . cedes to the United States all its territories, to be held by them in full property and sovereignty. . . . [Footnote 75]"
One of the objections made to the Treaty on the floor of the Senate was that it purported to cede to the United States all the territory claimed by Texas under her 1836 Boundary Act, to large parts of which Texas allegedly had no title, those parts assertedly having always been under the domination and control of Spain and Mexico. [Footnote 76] This objection was countered by several proponents of the Treaty who insisted that, since it contained no delineation of boundaries and since the Republic of Texas was referred to by a general designation, the clause "all its
territories" ceded only that which properly and rightfully belonged to Texas, its Boundary Act notwithstanding. [Footnote 77]
The proponents pointed also to a letter of instructions written by Secretary of State Calhoun to the United States Charge d'Affaires in Mexico a week after the Treaty was signed, which enjoined the latter, in making the Treaty known to Mexico,
"to assure the Mexican Government that it is his [the President's] desire to settle all questions between the two countries which may grow out of this treaty, or any other cause, on the most liberal and satisfactory terms, including that of boundary. . . . [The United States] has taken every precaution to make the terms of the treaty as little objectionable to Mexico as possible; and, among others, has left the boundary of Texas without specification, so that what the line of boundary should be might be an open question, to be fairly and fully discussed and settled according to the rights of each, and the mutual interest and security of the two countries. [Footnote 78]"
Despite these controversial aspects of the Treaty, it is quite apparent that its supporters desired to press Texas' boundary claims to the utmost degree possible. President Tyler, in response to the Senate's request, transmitted to it a map showing the western and southwestern boundaries of Texas, and according generally with the Texas Boundary Act. [Footnote 79] Senator Walker of Mississippi, while insisting that the Treaty ceded "only . . . the country embraced within its [Texas'] lawful boundaries,"
asserted that, in fact, her lawful boundary extended to the Rio Grande, that it had extended that far when she was ceded away by the United States in 1819, that the United States had acquiesced in those boundaries when it recognized Texas in 1837, and that Mexico had never protested the Convention of 1838 which allegedly validated that boundary. [Footnote 80] Senator Breese of Illinois, while assuring the Treaty's opponents that the boundary was left open to future determination, avowed that the United States had acknowledged the Texas boundaries as asserted in her 1836 statute, and that he was in favor of the recovery not only of the old province of Texas as it existed in 1803 and 1819, but also "for as much more as the "republic" of Texas can lawfully claim." [Footnote 81] Senators Woodbury of New Hampshire and Buchanan of Pennsylvania, while expressing doubt about the validity of the Texas Boundary Act to the extent that it claimed portions of New Mexico, thought it was valid so far as it pressed beyond the Nueces to the Rio Grande and ought to be maintained. [Footnote 82]
After the failure of the Treaty, which would have annexed Texas as a territory of the United States, several proposals were introduced in the next session of Congress for the annexation of Texas by a Joint Resolution admitting it immediately as a State. [Footnote 83] The doubts which
had been raised in 1844 as to the validity of certain Texan pretensions to territory on her western and southwestern frontiers were reiterated during consideration of the various Resolutions, and reference was made to the fact that the rejected Treaty had been assailed as purporting to embrace such territory. [Footnote 84] In 1844, supporters of the Treaty had considered the general designation "all its territories" as ceding only territory which rightfully, properly, or lawfully belonged to Texas, and as leaving to the Executive the duty of settling the extent of that territory by amicable negotiation. [Footnote 85] The two clauses of the 1845
Annexation Resolution (ante, p. 363 U. S. 37), appear, against this background, to be an express formulation of precisely the same thing. The first makes it clear that the grant is of initially undefined scope, governed by the truism that only "the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas" is ceded. The second expressly contemplates future negotiation to settle the exact extent of such territory, by making it "subject to the adjustment by this government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments." In short, it is clear that the "properly" and "rightfully" clause was intended neither as a legislative determination that the entire area claimed by Texas was legitimately hers nor to serve, independently of the "adjustment" clause, as a self-operating standard for measuring Texas' boundaries. Rather, the precise fixation of the new State's boundaries was left to future negotiations with Mexico.
The circumstances surrounding the Resolution's passage make it clear that this was the understanding of Congress. Congressional attention was focused primarily on the great political questions attending annexation -- primarily the extent to which slavery would be permitted in the new territory and the possibility that annexation would embroil this country with Mexico -- and the matter of boundary received little consideration except as it was related to the larger issues. Public agitation over annexation had become so great that some bills had proposed annexation virtually in the abstract, with all details to be worked out later. [Footnote 86] Although the Resolution, as ultimately
passed did settle the details of certain matters -- notably slavery, the Texan debt, and the mode of annexation -- the manifest purport of it and all the many other annexation bills introduced was to postpone the fixing of boundaries for the sake of achieving immediate annexation, and no apparent importance was attached to the particular verbal formula used to achieve such postponement. [Footnote 87] The general tenor of opposition to annexation
changed from a fear that the cession covered too much to criticisms of the indefinite treatment of boundary and concern over whether Texas really owned as much as some supporters asserted. [Footnote 88] It is true that isolated statements were made which seem to indicate that the speaker thought the Resolutions would admit Texas with the boundary defined in her 1836 boundary statute, subject to possible subsequent readjustment. [Footnote 89] However, read in
context, these statements may have meant no more than that the United States, in its negotiations with Mexico, would attempt to sustain the full extent of Texas' declared boundaries, rather than that those boundaries were in fact proper. Be that as it may, in view of the overwhelming evidence of Congressional understanding and of the express language of the Annexation Resolution as ultimately passed, the conclusion is inescapable that Texas, at least as to its land area, was admitted with undefined boundaries subject to later settlement.
While this conclusion appears unavoidable as regards Texas' land boundaries, a question does exist as to whether it applies also to the State's seaward boundary. For we are unable to find in the Congressional debates either on the 1844 Treaty or the 1845 Annexation Resolution a single instance of significant advertence to the problem of seaward boundaries. Furthermore, a series of other events manifests a total lack of concern with the problem. Prior to Texan independence, the United States had entered into successive treaties with Spain and Mexico, [Footnote 90] which provided that
"The boundary line between the two countries, west of the Mississippi, shall begin on the Gulph of Mexico at the mouth of the river Sabin, in the sea, continuing north, along the western bank of that river. . . ."
(Emphasis added.)
Just after Texas had proclaimed its independence from Mexico, the two countries, on May 14, 1836, concluded "Articles of Agreement and Solemn Compact," acknowledging Texan independence and setting its boundary as follows:
"The line shall commence at the estuary or mouth of the Rio Grande, on the western bank thereof, and shall pursue the same bank up the said river. . . . [Footnote 91]"
(Emphasis added.) Thereafter, a minister was sent to the United States to seek recognition and broach the subject of annexation. With respect to the latter, he was instructed on November 18, 1836:
"As regards the boundaries of Texas . . . , [w]e claim and consider that we have possession to the Rio Bravo del Norte. Taking this as the basis, the boundary of Texas would be as follows. Beginning at the mouth of said River on the Gulf of Mexico, thence up the middle thereof. . . . [Footnote 92]"
(Emphasis added.) Yet, a month later, on December 19, 1836, the Texan Congress passed the Boundary Act which inexplicably, so far as we can find, provided that the boundary should run along the Gulf of Mexico at three leagues from land. [Footnote 93]
Quite in contrast, in the subsequent Convention of 1838 to establish the boundary between the United States and Texas, Texas reaffirmed the 1819 and 1828 Treaties with Spain and Mexico regarding that boundary and agreed to the running and marking of
"that portion of the said boundary which extends from the mouth of the Sabine, where that river enters the Gulph of Mexico, to the Red river. [Footnote 94]"
(Emphasis added.) Again, as previously mentioned ( note 79 ante), during its consideration of the unratified Treaty of April 12, 1844, the Senate requested President Tyler to transmit any information he possessed concerning the southern, southwestern, and western boundaries of Texas. On April 26, 1844, he sent a map and a memoir by its compiler. The memoir flagrantly misquoted the 1836 Boundary Act by
describing the Texas boundary as "Beginning at the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence up the principal stream of said river. . . ." [Footnote 95]
The foregoing circumstances make it abundantly plain that, at the time Texas was admitted to the Union, its seaward boundary, though expressly claimed at three leagues in the 1836 Texas Boundary Act, had not been the subject of any specific concern in the train of events leading to annexation.
Given this state of affairs, we must initially dispose of an argument made by Texas. The State urges, in effect, that whether or not its maritime boundary was actually considered by the Congress or the Executive during the course of the annexation proceedings, it was incumbent upon the United States to protest or reject in some manner Texas' claim in this regard, and that failure to do so constituted in law a validation or ratification of that boundary claim upon admission. Whatever the merit of this proposition may be in the abstract, the controlling factor for purposes of this case must be the terms of the Joint Resolution of Annexation. There is, indeed, a strong argument that the "properly," "rightfully," and "adjustment" clauses of that Resolution should be read as applying only to the land boundaries disputed with Mexico, which give rise to those qualifications, and that the Resolution was meant to validate any boundary asserted by Texas without protest. However, in light of the fact that the language employed in the Resolution is of general applicability, we should hesitate to limit its effect by reading into it such an additional unexpressed test respecting the extent of Texas' boundaries. We think that its language must be taken as applying to Texas' maritime boundary as well as to its land boundary.
On this basis, an argument of the Government must now be met. It is contended that, since Texas was admitted to the Union with its maritime boundary not yet settled, United States foreign policy on the extent of territorial waters, to which Texas was admittedly subject from the moment of admission, automatically upon admission operated to fix its seaward boundary at three miles. This contention must be rejected. As we have noted, the boundaries contemplated by the Submerged Lands Act are those fixed by virtue of Congressional power to admit new States and to define the extent of their territory, not by virtue of the Executive power to determine this country's obligations via-a-vis foreign nations. Ante, p. 363 U. S. 30-36. It may indeed be that the Executive, in the exercise of its power, can limit the enjoyment of certain incidents of a Congressionally conferred boundary, but it does not fix that boundary. If, as in the case of Texas, Congress employs an uncertain standard in fixing a State's boundaries, we must nevertheless endeavor to apply that standard to the historical events surrounding admission.
We are brought back, then, to a two-fold inquiry: first, whether the three-league maritime boundary asserted by the Republic of Texas embraced an area which was "properly included within, and rightfully belonging to" the Republic. Second, whether such a boundary was ever fixed for the Texas pursuant to the power reserved by Congress to adjust "all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments." As we have observed, it is evident that the first clause, independently of the second, was not intended to operate as a self-executing standard for determining the disputed western and southwestern boundaries of Texas. To attempt to apply that clause as fixing the extent of Texas' maritime boundary, immediately upon admission to the Union, no less than in so fixing its land boundaries, would be illusory, at best. The parties devote considerable
discussion to the validity or invalidity of the asserted three-league maritime boundary under international law. It is true that the propriety of a nation's seaward boundary must be viewed in the context of its obligations vis-a-vis the family of nations. But surely the Joint Resolution of Annexation could not have been meant to import such an elusive inquiry into the determination of Texas' maritime boundary, especially when that question was never even considered and when the Resolution was expressly drawn to leave undefined the land boundaries which did receive consideration. And we are unable to say that Congress might have deemed the three-league maritime boundary "proper" or "rightful" in some other sense. It is necessary, therefore, to look to other events to ascertain where the Texan maritime boundary was fixed pursuant to the Joint Resolution of Annexation.
Congress' failure to carry into the Annexation Resolution the boundaries fixed by the 1836 Texas Boundary Act did not, of course, foreclose the possibility that the State's boundary might ultimately be fixed in accordance with that statute. It is significant in this regard to note the opinions ventured in Congress on the probable settlement of the boundary with Mexico which would occur subsequent to annexation. One group asserted that the Texan claims to the Rio Grande, particularly the portion which encompassed New Mexico, could not possibly be maintained. [Footnote 96] But such remarks were made primarily by opponents of annexation, and were intended as warnings against assuming that enough land would be included in the cession to pay the Texan debt or to form free States. Much more significant than opinions as to where the boundary might ultimately be fixed are observations made
regarding the basis on which the boundary question might be pressed against Mexico. Supporters and opponents alike acknowledged that the United States would probably negotiate on the basis of the Texan boundaries as declared in her own boundary statute, even though some parts of that boundary might not be maintainable. Some thought this was so because those boundaries were, in fact, her proper and rightful boundaries. [Footnote 97] Others thought it was so because the United States, having acquiesced in the Boundary Act after receiving notice of it, was bound, upon admitting Texas to the Union, to maintain those claims on her behalf. [Footnote 98] Whatever the reasons given, it is
clear that Congress, although it purposely refused to settle the question, anticipated that the Texas Boundary Act should and would be insisted on to the greatest degree possible in negotiations with Mexico.
This prediction was borne out by subsequent events. After the Annexation Resolution had been passed the transmitted to Texas for its assent, the Mexican army threatened to cross the Rio Grande and invade Texas. On June 15, 1845, President Polk wrote an informal and confidential letter to the United States Charge d'Affaires in Texas which indicated that Polk intended to repel such an invasion and to maintain the Texan claim at least to the lower portion of the Rio Grande:
"In the contingency . . . that a Mexican army should cross the Rio Grande . . . , then, in my judgment,
the public necessity for our interposition will be such that we should not stand quietly by and permit an invading foreign enemy either to occupy or devastate any portion of the Texian territory. Of course, I would maintain the Texan title to the extent which she claims it to be, and not permit an invading enemy to occupy a foot of the soil East of the Rio Grande."
Andrew Donelson Papers (Library of Congress), Vol. 10, folios 2068-2070. Nine days before, Polk had manifested a similar intention in a letter to Sam Houston, former President of the Republic of Texas and an influential spokesman for annexation:
"You may have no apprehensions in regard to your boundary. Texas once a part of the Union and we will maintain all your rights of territory and will not suffer them to be sacrificed."
Polk Papers (Library of Congress) (1845), Vol. 84.
The attitude of the Executive at this time toward the Texan boundary is made even more explicit by an account of an interview between the United States Charge d'Affaires in Texas and Sam Houston, written by the former to his superior, the Secretary of State:
"I stated at large the general policy of the United States as justifying no doubt of the tenacity with which they would maintain not only the present claim of Texas, but reenforce it with the preexisting one derived from France in 1803 . . ."
"I brought also to his view the fact that this latter feature of the proposals did not interfere with the right of Texas to define her limits as she claimed them, in her statutes -- that the specification of the Rio Grande as the western boundary would be proper enough as shewing the extent to which the United States would maintain her claim as far as it could be
done without manifest injustice to Mexico, and to the portion of the inhabitants of Mexico that had never yet acknowledged the jurisdiction of Texas -- that practically the United States would take the place of Texas, and would be obligated to do all, in this respect, that Texas could do, were she to remain a separate nation. [Footnote 99]"
After Texas consented to annexation and Congress had finally admitted her to statehood, the Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and declared war upon the United States. On May 11, 1846, President Polk called on Congress to declare war against Mexico. He said in part:
"Texas, by the final action of our Congress, had become an integral part of our Union. The Congress of Texas, by its act of December 19, 1836, had declared the Rio del Norte to be the boundary of that republic. Its jurisdiction had been extended and exercised beyond the Nueces. The country between that river and the Del Norte had been represented in the Congress and in the convention of Texas; had thus taken part in the act of annexation itself; and is now included within one of our congressional districts. Our own Congress had, moreover, with great unanimity, by the act approved December 31, 1845, recognized the country beyond the Nueces as a part of our territory by including it within our own revenue system; and a revenue officer, to reside within that district, has been appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It became, therefore, of urgent necessity to provide for the defence of that portion of our country."
H.R.Exec.Doc. No. 60, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 4, 7.
In a later message to Congress on December 8, 1846, Polk manifested the same disposition, H.R.Exec.Doc. No. 4, 29th Cong., 2d Sess. 13-14. And, on December 7, 1847, he explained that the United States had rejected a treaty proposal by Mexico because
"It required the United States to dismember Texas by surrendering to Mexico that part of the territory of that State lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, included within her limits by her laws when she was an independent republic, and when she was annexed to the United States and admitted by Congress as one of the States of our Union."
H.R.Exec.Doc. No. 8, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 9.
However, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that the Executive, any more than the Congress, was interested in, or was at all aware of any problem presented by, the seaward boundary of Texas claimed in its 1836 Boundary Act. The Government urges, by way of explanation, that the United States had, by this time, firmly established a policy of claiming no more than three miles of territorial waters. But the Executive's responsibility for fixing the Texan boundary derived from a delegation of Congressional power to admit new States, not from the Executive's own power to fix the extent of territorial waters. As we have already pointed out, the two powers can operate independently, and only the first is determinative in this case. To the extent it may be argued that the Executive would naturally take account of its own policy toward territorial waters in fixing the Congressionally mandated boundary, the data presented to us are utterly devoid of any suggestion that such was the case. On the contrary, it is evident that the overwhelming concern of the President and his subordinates was to maintain to the greatest extent possible the land boundaries claimed by Texas and disputed with Mexico,
as anticipated by Congress. The settlement of that matter remained for future events, to which we now turn.
On April 15, 1847, Nicholas P. Trist was appointed Commissioner to Mexico to negotiate a peace treaty. Among his instructions was a project of the proposed treaty, which provided:
"The boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from land opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, from thence up the middle of that river. . . ."
5 Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America (1937), 265. (Emphasis added.) This language was incorporated verbatim into Article V of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as finally signed on February 2, 1848, 9 Stat. 922, which fixed the boundary between the United States and Mexico from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast. [Footnote 100] While there was considerable
disagreement in the negotiations over the various land boundaries, the proposals of both parties never departed from the three-league provision. See 5 Miller, op. cit. supra at 270, 288, 289, 315, 317, 325.
Trist stated in his notes that one object of instructions given to his predecessor, substantially identical in relevant part to those given him, was to get Mexico to agree to a boundary which
"would throw within the territory of the United States the country lying east of the Rio Grande. Or,
as said object stands in said instructions, specifically stated & expressed, it was the object of prevailing upon Mexico"
"to agree that the line shall be established along the boundary defined by the act of Congress of Texas, approved December 19, 1836, to-wit: beginning at 'the mouth of the Rio Grande; thence up the principal stream of said river. . . .' [Footnote 101]"
While this misquotation of the Texas Boundary Act again demonstrates total insensitivity to any problem of a seaward boundary, the passage does indicate that the United States was attempting to follow the Texas statute in negotiating the boundary. [Footnote 102] More important for the purposes of this case are the circumstances that the three-league provision was made an express part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, that such boundary was reaffirmed five years later in the Gadsden Treaty of December 30, 1853 [Footnote 103] and subsequently in a long line
of international conventions, [Footnote 104] and that it has never been repudiated.
The Treaty unquestionably established the Rio Grande from New Mexico to the Gulf as the land boundary not only of the United States, but also of Texas, since the Executive, acting pursuant to the power given by Congress to "adjust" Texas' boundaries in dealings with other nations, pressed that boundary against Mexico on the theory that it embraced territory rightfully belonging to the Texas. There is nothing to indicate that the extension of that boundary three leagues into the Gulf, pursuant to the very same Boundary Act, was treated on any different basis. The portion of the boundary extending into the Gulf, like the rest of the line, was intended to separate the territory of the two countries, and to recognize that the maritime territory of Texas extended three leagues seaward.
Whether the Treaty be deemed to constitute an exercise of the power to adjust the boundaries left unsettled by the 1845 Joint Resolution of Annexation, or a post hoc recognition of a seaward boundary which was actually fixed for Texas upon its admission in 1845, or a fixation of boundaries which related back to the time of admission, is of no moment. Although the Submerged Lands Act requires that a State's boundary in excess of three miles must have existed "at the time" of its admission, that phrase was intended, in substance, to define a State's present boundaries by reference to the events surrounding its admission. As such, it clearly includes a boundary which was
fixed pursuant to a Congressional mandate establishing the terms of the State's admission, even though the final execution of that mandate occurred a short time subsequent to admission.
The Government contends that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is of no significance in this case, because the line drawn three leagues out to sea was not meant to separate territory of the two countries, but only to separate their rights to exercise certain types of "extraterritorial" jurisdiction with respect to customs and smuggling. We believe the conclusion is clear that what the line, denominated a "boundary" in the Treaty itself, separates is territory of the respective countries. No reference to "extraterritorial" jurisdiction is made in the Treaty, and no such concept can be gleaned from the context of the negotiations. Being based on the three-league provision of the 1836 Texas Boundary Act, which itself denotes a territorial boundary, the obvious and common sense meaning of the analogous treaty provision is that it separates the maritime territory of the United States and Mexico.
The Government relies on certain diplomatic correspondence as evidencing a subsequent construction of the Treaty contrary to this conclusion. In 1848, when Great Britain protested the three-league provision of the Treaty, both the United States and Mexico replied that the Treaty defined rights only as between the two countries, and was not intended to impair the rights of any other nation in the marginal sea. [Footnote 105] In 1875, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish made a similar explanation to Lord Derby of England,
but added a new contention that the boundary provision was "probably" suggested by the Acts of Congress permitting revenue officials to board vessels bound for the United States within four leagues of the coast. [Footnote 106] And, in 1936, after Mexico had asserted a three-league belt of territorial water along its entire coast, the United States, in denying that the Treaty gave Mexico such a right, adopted both rationales relied on in 1875, and in addition contended that the boundary provision did recognize the territory of the two countries as extending three leagues from the coast, but only in the "one area" adjacent to the international boundary. [Footnote 107] It seems evident from the
shifting and uncertain grounds upon which these pronouncements relied that they should be taken as reflecting no more than after-the-fact attempts to limit the effect of a provision which patently purported to establish a three-league territorial boundary, so as to bring it into accord with this country's international obligations. Undoubtedly the Executive has the right to limit the effect to be accorded a treaty provision in its dealings with other countries. But where, as here, that Treaty touches upon relationships between the Nation and a State created pursuant to a Congressional mandate, the original purport of the Treaty must control, and the dealings of the Executive with other nations cannot affect the State's rights in any way as a domestic matter.
We conclude, therefore, that, pursuant to the Annexation Resolution of 1845, Texas' maritime boundary was established at three leagues from its coast for domestic purposes. Of course, we intimate no view on the effectiveness of this boundary as against other nations. Accordingly, Texas is entitled to a grant of three leagues from her coast under the Submerged Lands Act.
BOUNDARIES CLAIMED BY TEXAS*
image:a
* United States Department of the Interior, Boundaries, Areas, Geographic Centers, and Altitudes of the United States and the Several States, Second Edition, 1932, Edward M. Douglas, Editor, Geological Survey Bulletin 817, p. 170.
III
THE PARTICULAR CLAIMS OF LOUISIANA
Louisiana's claims, like those of Texas, are based on the contention that it had a three-league maritime boundary which existed "at the time" it was admitted to the Union, and must be judged by the same standards. The Act of Congress admitting the State to the Union in 1812 [Footnote 107a] described the new State's boundaries as follows:
"beginning at the mouth of the river Sabine; thence, by a line to be drawn along the middle of said river, including all islands to the thirty-second degree of latitude; thence, due north, to the northernmost part of the thirty-third degree of north latitude; thence, along the said parallel of latitude, to the river Mississippi; thence, down the said river, to the river Iberville; and from thence, along the middle of the said river, and lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain, to the gulf of Mexico; thence, bounded by the said gulf, to the place of beginning, including all islands within three leagues of the coast. . . ."
(Emphasis added.) Louisiana claims that the concluding clause "including all islands within three leagues of the coast" should be read to mean that Congress fixed as the State's seaward boundary a line three leagues from its coast, and that such a reading is supported both by the State's preadmission history and by subsequent events. The Government, on the other hand, insists that the phrase includes only the islands themselves lying within three leagues of the coast, and not all water within that distance as well. [Footnote 108]
1. The Act of Admission on Its Face.
The language of the Act itself appears clearly to support the Government's position. The boundary line is drawn down the middle of the river Iberville "to the Gulf of Mexico," not into it for any distance. The State is thence to be bounded "by the said gulf," not by a line located three leagues out in the Gulf, "to the place of beginning," which is described as "at the mouth of the river Sabine," not somewhere beyond the mouth in the Gulf. (Emphasis added.) And while "all islands" within
three leagues of the coast were to be included, there is no suggestion that all waters within three leagues were to be embraced as well. In short, the language of the Act evidently contemplated no territorial sea whatever.
Similar language was employed in the Treaty of Paris of September 3, 1783, by which Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. [Footnote 109] After describing the boundary of the United States from the mouth of the St. Croix River in the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the St. Mary's River between Georgia and Florida, the parties added: "comprehending all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States. . . ." In the light of Jefferson's observation, only 10 years later, that national claims to control of the sea beyond approximately 20 miles from the coast had not therefore been generally recognized among maritime powers, [Footnote 110] his accompanying proposal that a three-mile limit should be placed upon the extent of territorial waters, [Footnote 111] and subsequent American and British policy in this regard, see note 54 supra, it is hardly conceivable that this provision of the Treaty was intended to establish United States territorial jurisdiction over all waters lying within 20 leagues (60 miles) of the shore. [Footnote 112] No reason appears for reading
the Louisiana statute differently. The conclusion that language claiming all islands within a certain distance of the coast is not meant to claim all the marginal sea to that distance is further confirmed by the Act defining the boundaries of Georgia, [Footnote 113] which claims three miles of marginal sea, but all islands within 20 leagues of the coast. That Act provides:
"along the middle of [the St. Mary's] river to the Atlantic Ocean, and extending therein three English miles from low-water mark; thence running in a northeasterly direction and following the direction of the Atlantic coast to a point opposite the mouth, or inlet, of said Savannah River; and from thence to the mouth or inlet of said Savannah River, to the place of beginning; including all the lands, waters, islands, and jurisdictional rights within said limits, and also all the islands within 20 marine leagues of the seacoast."
Nothing in the case of Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, tends toward a contrary construction. The Court there held that an Act of Congress designating as an Indian reservation "the body of lands known as Annette Islands" included the intervening and surrounding waters and submerged lands, which were inland waters admittedly under the control of the United States, whether actually part of the reservation or not. The Court, construing the statute in light of the Indians' historic use of these waters as fishing grounds, merely concluded that Congress intended to include in the area reserved the waters and waterbed, as well as the islands, referring to both "as a single body of lands." Id., 248 U. S. 89. The construction here contended for by Louisiana would,
in contrast, sweep within the State's jurisdiction waters and submerged lands which bear no proximate relation to any islands, and which would otherwise be part of the high seas.
Louisiana also contends, relying on United States v. Texas, 162 U. S. 1; Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U. S. 1, that this Court has already determined that its boundary includes three leagues of marginal sea. The Texas case, however, involved only the question whether Greer County, in the northwest part of the State, was properly a part of Texas. And even if that case had effectively established a three-league maritime boundary for Texas, which quite evidently it did not, that would not establish a similar boundary for Louisiana.
The Mississippi case involved only the issue of the boundary between Louisiana and Mississippi. Louisiana relies on the holding of the Court that, because the eastern boundary of Louisiana was a water boundary along the middle of the river Iberville, extending to the Gulf, it went on to include a deep-water sailing channel in the Gulf adjacent to Mississippi. It also relies on a rough map included in the Court's opinion showing a line drawn all the way around the State's coast at some distance in the Gulf. There is, however, no indication whatever that the line so indicated bore any relation to the three-league provision in the Louisiana Act of Admission. Furthermore, if there could be any doubt that only the portion of the water boundary adjacent to Mississippi was considered by the Court, it is dispelled by the Court's statement that
"Questions as to the breadth of the maritime belt or the extent of the sway of the riparian states require no special consideration here. The facts render such discussion unnecessary."
Id., 202 U. S. 52. See also United States v. California, supra, at 332 U. S. 37.
2. Preadmission History.
Preliminarily, it should be observed that, in light of what has already been said, pp. 363 U. S. 24-30, Louisiana's preadmission history is relevant in this case only to the extent that it aids in construing the Louisiana Act of Admission. The thrust of the State's argument on this score is that the boundaries fixed by the Act of Admission comprised the entire area acquired by the United States from France through the Louisiana Purchase, effected by the Treaty of Paris in 1803; that the extent of this area traces back, through cessions by France to Spain in 1762 and Spain to France in 1800, to what was first claimed by France in 1682; and that such area originally extended some 120 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, and, in any case, by virtue of other events at least three leagues into the Gulf.
For reasons now to be discussed, we think that this historical thesis is not borne out by any of the documents or events on which Louisiana relies, but that, to the contrary, what has been shown us leads to the conclusion that Louisiana's preadmission territory, consistently with the Act of Admission, stopped at its coast, and did not embrace any marginal sea.
1. The area which includes the present Louisiana was first claimed for France by La Salle in 1682, extending southward
"as far as [the Mississippi's] . . . mouth in the sea, or Gulf of Mexico, about the twenty-seventh degree of the elevation of the North Pole. . . . [Footnote 114]"
It is apparent from the face of La Salle's proclamation that it was the mouth of the Mississippi which defined
the southerly limit of his claim. His expression of belief that the river mouth was at "about" the 27th parallel does not indicate an intent to claim to that parallel, which is, in fact, some 120 miles south of the Mississippi's mouth. In any event, the proces-verbal of Jacques de la Metairie, notary of the La Salle expedition, [Footnote 115] shows that the proclamation was issued after the mouth of the Mississippi had been reached and the party had returned upstream only far enough to find solid ground for the erection of a monument, and that La Salle then thought, mistakenly, in fact, that they were at about the 27th parallel. Other documents also indicate that the river mouth defined the extent of the claim, and that the territory included no marginal sea whatever. [Footnote 116]
2. By a secret Treaty executed at Fontainebleau on November 3, 1762, France ceded to Spain "all the country known under the name of Louisiana, as well as New Orleans and the island in which the place stands." [Footnote 117] By the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed October 1, 1800, Spain retroceded the "colony and province of Louisiana" to France. [Footnote 118] Certainly there is nothing on the face of
either of these Treaties to indicate that France or Spain claimed any territorial sea.
3. Louisiana argues, however, that certain treaties between France, Spain, and other nations evidence such an intent. Four of these treaties concern the right of the French to fish within certain distances of the coasts of the British possessions in North America, varying from three to 30 leagues. The relevant portions do not relate to French or Spanish territory at all. [Footnote 119] In another, Great Britain undertook not to permit its subjects to navigate or fish within 10 leagues of coasts occupied by Spain "in the Pacific Ocean, or in the South Seas," so as to prevent illicit trade with Spanish settlements. [Footnote 120] The Treaty does not relate to the area in question, and, far from being an assertion of a territorial claim by Spain, imposed an obligation of a limited nature on Great Britain alone. The same reasoning applies to another of these treaties, the Treaty between Spain and Tripoli, signed September 10, 1794, prohibiting the capture of any vessel within 10 leagues from coasts of the dominions of Spain. [Footnote 121] Reliance is also placed on an ordinance promulgated by Philip II of Spain in October, 1565, asserting rights within the visual horizon of the coasts of Spain and its possessions. [Footnote 122] It may be questioned whether this ordinance
even constituted an assertion of territorial jurisdiction as it is known today, especially in view of the fact that the concept of the territorial sea did not arise in international law until after this country achieved its independence. See United States v. California, supra, 332 U. S. 32-33. Even if it did, the ordinance can hardly be taken as applying to a territory not acquired by Spain until 200 years later, or as affecting the construction of the Act admitting Louisiana to the Union 250 years later. [Footnote 123]
4. By the Treaty of Paris, signed April 30, 1803, France ceded to the United States the Louisiana Territory with all its rights and appurtenances
"as fully and in the same manner as they have been acquired by the French Republic, in virtue of the above-mentioned treaty [Treaty of San Ildefonso, Oct. 1, 1800], concluded with his Catholic Majesty,"
including "the adjacent islands belonging to Louisiana." [Footnote 124] To show that the Act admitting Louisiana to the Union must be construed as referring to the Union must be be construed as referring directly to this Treaty, Louisiana relies on Article III of the Treaty, which required the United States to admit "the ceded territory" to statehood as soon as possible. But, since the historic documents to which our attention has been called fail to show that the ceded territory included any territorial sea, taking the Treaty as defining the scope of the Act of Admission only confirms the view that Louisiana's maritime boundary was fixed at, and not somewhere in, the Gulf of Mexico.
5. Louisiana also asserts that, about the time of its admission, the United States was claiming three leagues of territorial waters in the Gulf, and that the Act of Admission was framed with reference to that claim. However, from the great variety of documentation presented by the parties, the most that could possibly be said is that the United States, contrary to the Government's contention, had not unequivocally asserted the applicability of the three-mile limit in the Gulf of Mexico. Assuming, as the defendants have here argued, that it would have been reasonable under international law for the United States to claim three leagues of territorial waters in the Gulf had it so chosen, we nevertheless cannot conclude that Congress meant to define Louisiana's boundaries by reference to a rule which was the subject of so much difference among nations and which had never been adopted by this country. The terms of the Act of Admission seem to point so strongly to the contrary that it would require much more convincing evidence than this to persuade us that the construction advanced by Louisiana is correct. Furthermore, it is significant that, only a few years later, Congress admitted Mississippi and Alabama to the Union, describing their boundaries as including all islands within six leagues of the shore. See pp. 363 U. S. 81-82, post. If the three-league provision in Louisiana's Act of Admission was intended to reflect a policy of claiming three leagues of territorial waters, it is difficult to understand why Congress, so shortly thereafter, should have incorporated a six-league limit in an otherwise identical provision.
3. Post-admission Events.
To the extent that Louisiana's reliance on post-admission events is for the purpose of showing that the United States established a three-league "national boundary" in the Gulf, they cannot help her case, for reasons previously discussed. Ante, pp. 363 U. S. 30-36. We need not decide whether the United States ever claimed three leagues of
territorial waters along the entire Gulf coast, which could, in a sense, be said to constitute a national boundary, or whether, if it did, Louisiana would have been entitled to extend its own boundary to that distance. Under the Submerged Lands Act, Louisiana's boundary must be measured at the time of her admission, unless a subsequent change was approved by Congress. If the Act of Admission fixed the boundary at the shore, neither action by Congress fixing greater boundaries for other States nor Executive policy on the extent of territorial waters could constitute Congressional approval of a maritime boundary for Louisiana. Louisiana, however, insists that certain of these events subsequent to admission must be considered in construing the Act of Admission.
1. We are urged to infer that since, as the Court today holds, three-league boundaries were fixed for Texas (ante, p. 363 U. S. 64) and Florida (ante, p. 363 U. S. 121), and since, after Texas' admission, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo fixed the starting point of the boundary between the United States and Mexico at three leagues in the Gulf, Congress must have meant to treat Louisiana equally. The inference must be based primarily on the existence of the Texas and Florida boundaries, for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo relates only to the boundary between Texas and Mexico, and tends to prove nothing more than the existence of a three-league boundary for Texas. In view of the fact that, shortly after Louisiana's admission, Congress fixed maritime boundaries for Mississippi and Alabama which, even on Louisiana's construction, would be different than three leagues, we can discern no consistent Congressional policy toward the maritime boundaries of the Gulf States at the time of Louisiana's admission, even if the much later actions with respect to Texas and Florida could be thought to have established such a policy. Cf. Louisiana v. Mississippi, supra, at 202 U. S. 41. It would require clear evidence that such a policy was operative at the time
Congress passed the Act admitting Louisiana to overcome language in that Act which points so strongly against the construction urged by Louisiana. Nor does the concept of equal footing require such a construction. While the ownership of certain lands within state boundaries has been held to be an inseparable attribute of the political sovereignty guaranteed equally to all States, see United States v. Texas, supra, at 339 U. S. 716, the geographic extent of those boundaries, and thus of the lands owned, clearly has nothing to do with political equality. A fortiori this is true in the case of maritime boundaries beyond low-water mark, since, except as granted by Congress, the States do not own the lands beneath the marginal seas. See United States v. California, supra; Alabama v. Texas, supra.
2. Certain treaties successively entered into from 1819 to 1838 by the United States with Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas establishing the boundary between Texas and the United States are relied on as indicating that the State and Federal Governments thought that Congress had fixed a three-league maritime boundary for Louisiana. [Footnote 125] Louisiana contends that the treaties fixed the beginning of the international boundary at a point three leagues from land, and that therefore the southwestern corner of Louisiana as well as the southeastern corner of Texas must have been regarded as extending seaward to that distance. Whether or not such reasoning is valid, the language of the treaties refutes the premise that the international boundary began three leagues from land. Both the 1819 and the 1828 treaties recited that
"[t]he boundary line between the two countries, west of
the Mississippi, shall begin on the Gulph of Mexico at the mouth of the river Sabine, in the sea. . . ."
The Treaty of 1838 referred to the Treaty of 1828, and provided for a survey of
"that portion of the said boundary which extends from the mouth of the Sabine, where that river enters the Gulph of Mexico, to the Red river. [Footnote 126]"
3. In its answer to the original complaint, Louisiana alleged certain acts of sovereignty over the marginal sea and seabed and the acquiescence of the Federal Government therein. [Footnote 127] Although it has now abandoned its earlier contention that these acts establish its title by prescription and estoppel apart from the Submerged Lands Act, it now urges that they indicate a subsequent practical construction of Louisiana's Act of Admission. Taking these facts as proved, they do not have the effect urged by Louisiana. They indicate only that, until the 1930's, the Federal Government may have believed that lands beneath the marginal sea belonged to the States. There is no allegation that the geographical extent of Louisiana's assertions, assuming that such assertions were made beyond three miles, was drawn in question, or that the question of Louisiana's boundary was considered. Some of the acts alleged constituted police power measures
which a State can enforce against its citizens beyond its boundaries. Skiriotes v. Florida, 313 U. S. 69. As to acts touching the development of the submerged lands themselves, the United States would have had no reason to object to activity beyond Louisiana's boundary, since not until 1945 did the Federal Government assert any rights in the Continental Shelf for itself. If any of the other acts alleged conflicted with this Nation's policy toward territorial waters, objection would have lain regardless of the location of the State's boundary, and lack of objection is therefore, for the purposes of this case, inconclusive.
4. Finally, Louisiana relies on a 1954 statute of its own establishing the State's boundary at three leagues seaward of the line between inland and open waters. Act 33 of 1954, La.Rev.Stat. 49:1. It is said that, in so legislating, Louisiana followed the coastline as defined in regulations promulgated by the Commandant of the Coast Guard, pursuant to the Federal Act of February 19, 1895, 28 Stat. 672, 33 U.S.C. § 151, and that, because of this, and also on considerations of convenience and certainty, this state enactment should be accepted as establishing Louisiana's coast. We think the consideration of this contention should be postponed to a later stage of this case. We decide now only that Louisiana is entitled to submerged land rights to a distance no greater than three geographical miles from its coastlines, wherever those lines may ultimately be shown to be.
IV
THE PARTICULAR CLAIMS OF MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi's claim to a three-league seaward boundary must fail largely for the same reasons that have led us to reject the similar claim of Louisiana.
The territory which now comprises the part of Mississippi lying south of the 31st parallel was originally ceded by France to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris of February 10, 1763. [Footnote 128] Great Britain designated this territory part of West Florida, and, by proclamation of October 7, 1763, King George III described West Florida as
"bounded to the southward by the Gulf of Mexico, including all islands within six leagues of the coast, from the river Apalachicola to Lake Pontchartrain. . . . [Footnote 129]"
On September 3, 1783, Great Britain and Spain signed a treaty by which Great Britain ceded this area to Spain as part of a cession embracing all of western and eastern Florida. [Footnote 130]
By the Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed October 1, 1800, Spain ceded to France "the colony and province of Louisiana." See p. 363 U. S. 72, ante. In the Treaty of Paris of April 30, 1803, France ceded Louisiana to the United States to the same extent as France had acquired it by virtue of the Treaty of San Ildefonso. See p. 363 U. S. 74, ante. A dispute arose between the United States and Spain as to whether, by the Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain had conveyed to France any land east of the Mississippi River (including any part of West Florida), and therefore whether France could have subsequently passed that territory to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. On October 27, 1810, President Madison claimed the right to possession of the area, [Footnote 131] and on May 14, 1812, Congress
made it part of the Mississippi Territory. [Footnote 132] On March 1, 1817, Congress authorized the creation of the Mississippi, specifically setting out its boundaries, in part as follows:
"thence due south to the Gulf of Mexico, thence westwardly, including all the islands within six leagues of the shore, to the most eastern junction of Pearl river with Lake Borgne. . . . [Footnote 133]"
(Emphasis added.)
The Mississippi Constitution, approved by the Act admitting the State to the Union on December 10, 1817, [Footnote 134] contained an identical provision. Finally, by the Treaty of February 22, 1819, Spain purported to cede East and West Florida to the United States. 8 Stat. 254. It was determined, however, in Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, that the portion of the Mississippi south of the 31st parallel passed to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase under the Treaty of Paris in 1803, and not as part of West Florida under the Spanish Treaty of 1819.
We have already held with respect to Louisiana's claim to a three-league maritime boundary that an Act of Admission which refers to all islands within a certain distance of the shore does not appear on its face to mean to establish a boundary line that distance from the shore, including all waters and submerged lands as well as all islands. There is nothing in Mississippi's history, just as there is nothing in Louisiana's, to cause us to depart from that conclusion in this instance. Indeed, Mississippi relies almost entirely on the fact that the very language which defeats its contention was repeatedly used, in the 1763 Proclamation by King George III, in the Congressional Enabling Act, and in the State Constitution, and was implicitly incorporated in mesne conveyances.
Mississippi also urges that the draftsmen of the provision must have intended to include all waters and submerged lands within six leagues from shore because the waters are very shallow and the islands are constantly shifting. This argument, however, appears only to strengthen the conclusion that it was islands upon which the provision focused, and not waters where there were no islands.
We must told that Mississippi is not entitled to rights in submerged lands lying beyond three geographical miles from its coast. [Footnote 135]
V
THE PARTICULAR CLAIMS OF ALABAMA
The preadmission history of Alabama is essentially the same as that of Mississippi, the portion of the State lying south of the 31st parallel having passed by the same mesne conveyances from France to the United States. That portion was incorporated into the Mississippi Territory by the Act of May 14, 1812, [Footnote 136] and became a part of the Alabama formed out of that territory. Its Act of Admission [Footnote 137] incorporated the Enabling Act, which described its boundary in part as follows:
"thence due south, to the Gulf of Mexico, thence eastwardly, including all the islands within six leagues of the shore, to the Perdido river. . . . [Footnote 138]"
The same reasons applicable to the claims of Louisiana and Mississippi compel us to hold that Alabama is not entitled to rights in submerged lands lying beyond three geographical miles from its coast. [Footnote 139]
VI
CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of what has been said in this opinion, we reach the following conclusions:
1. As to the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, a decree will be entered (1) declaring that the United States is entitled, as against these States, to all the lands, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the Gulf of Mexico more than three geographical miles from the coast of each such State, that is, from the line of ordinary low-water mark and outer limit of inland waters, and extending seaward to the edge of the Continental Shelf; (2) declaring that none of these States is entitled to any interest in such lands, minerals, and resources; (3) enjoining these States from interfering with the rights of the United States therein; (4) directing each such State appropriately to account to the United States for all sums of money derived therefrom subsequent to June 5, 1950: [Footnote 140] and (5) dismissing the cross-bill of the Alabama. [Footnote 141]
2. As to the Texas, a decree will be entered (1) declaring that the State is entitled, as against the United States, to the lands, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the Gulf of Mexico to a distance of three leagues from Texas' coast, that is, from the line of ordinary low-water mark and outer limit of inland waters; (2) declaring that the United States is entitled, as against Texas, to no interest therein; (3) declaring that the United States is entitled, as against Texas, to all such lands, minerals, and resources lying beyond that area, and extending to the edge of the Continental Shelf; (4) enjoining the State from interfering with the rights of the United States therein; and (5) directing Texas appropriately to account to the United States for all sums of money derived since June 5, 1950, from the area to which the United States is declared to be entitled.
3. Jurisdiction over this case will be retained for such further proceedings as may be necessary to effectuate the rights adjudicated herein.
4. The motions of Louisiana and Mississippi to take depositions and present evidence are denied, without prejudice to their renewal in such further proceedings as may be had in connection with matters left open by this opinion. [Footnote 142] In so deciding we have not been unmindful of this Court's liberality in original cases of "allowing full development of the facts." See United States v. Texas, 339 U. S. 707, 339 U. S. 715. We think, however, that the conclusions to be drawn from the historical documents relied on
by Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are so clear as to leave no issue presently involved open to dispute, and that we would not be justified in postponing the gran