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John Pollard et al., Lessee, Plaintiff in Error, v. John Hagan et al., Defendants in Error U.S. 212 (1845)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0318 and id is 1 raw text is: SUPREME- JOURT. TORN PoLTARD _T AL.., LaSSEE, P&DMTF lN RnoR, v..Jom IIGAN ET AL., D1FENDAiM IN ERROR. The stipulation contained-in the 6th section 'of the act of Congress,.passed, on the 2d of March, 1819, for the admission 'of the state of Alabama into the union,-iiz.: 'that all navigable waters within the said state shall for ever re- main public highways, free to the citizens of said state,-and of the United States, without any tax, duty, -impost, or toll therefor, imposed by said state, conveys no more power over the navigable waters of Alabama, tb the government of the United Statt, than it possesses over-the navigable waters of other stat~s under thl provisions of the Constitution. And it leaves as much right in the state of Alabama over them. as the original sthtes'possess over navigable waters within their respective limits. The .shores of navigable waters, and the soils under them, 'were not granted by the Constitution to thd United States, but were reserved to the states respec- tively.; and the new siates have the same rights, sovereigntyand jurisdiction over this subject as the original states. The UnitedYStates never held any municipal sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of soil in and to the territory of which Alabama,. or any of the new states, were formed, except for temporary purposes, and to execute the trusts criated by the acts of the Virginia and Georgia legislatures, and the deeds of cession executed by them to the United States, and the trust created by the treaty of the 30th April, 1803, with the French republic, ceding Louisiana. Upon the admission df Alabama'into the unilon, the. right of eminent. domain, which had been temporarily held by the United States, passed to the state. Nothing remained in the United States but'the p'tblic lands. The United States now hold the pu'blic lands in the new states by force of the deeds of cession and the statutes connected with them, and not by any mimi- cipat sovereignty which.it may'be supposed'they possess or have received by compact ivith the new states foi that particular purpose. That part of-the compact respecting th&'public lands, is nothing more than the exercise of a constitutional power vested in Congress, and would'have been binding on the people of the new states whether they consented to be bound or not. Under the Florida treaty the United'States did not succeed to those rights which the King of Spain had held by virtue of-his royal prerogative, but possessed the territory subject tothe institutions and laws of its own government By the acts of Congress under which Alabama was erected a territory and a state, the common law was. extended over it to the exclusion of all other law, Spanish or French... The treaty of 1795 was not a cession of territory by Spain to-the United States, but; the recognition ofr a boundary liine, iand dn admission, by Spain, that all the territory-, on the American side of the line was originally within the Unied-States. - : ' The United States have never admitted that they derived title from theSpanish governmentto anyportiqn of territory included within the limits of Alabama; for, by thetreaty of 1795, Spain admitted that she had no claim to any terri- tory above the thiity-first degree of north latitude, and the 'United States de- rived its title to all below' that degree from France, under the Louisiana treaty.'. It rpsults.from these principles that the right.of the United States to the public lands, an7 the power of Congress to make- all needful rules and regulf.tions for the sale and dispositioi' thereof, conferred iio power to'grant land in Alabama which was below usual, high witer-mark.-at the timd Alabama was admitted into the uni.

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