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![handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0366 and id is 1 raw text is: Dec. 1870.] VIRGINIA V. WEST VIRGINIA.
Syllabus.
in question. But if the record, he proceeds, does not show
that they were necessarily drawn in question, this court can-
not take jurisdiction to reverse the decision of the highest
court of a State upon the ground that counsel brought them
in question in argument. We will add, if this court should
entertain jurisdiction upon a certificate alone in the absence
of any evidence of the question in the record, then the Su-
preme Court of the State can give the jurisdiction in every
case where the question is made by counsel in the argument.
The office of the certificate, as it respects the Federal ques-
tion, is to make more certain and specific what is too general
aild indefinite in the record, but is incompetent to originate
the question within the true construction of the 25th section.
MOTION TO DISMISS GRANTED.
VIRGINIA V. WEST VIRGINIA.
1. This court has original jurisdiction, under the Constitution, of'contro-
versies between States of the Union concerning their boundaries.
2. This jurisdiction is not defeated because in deciding the question of
boundary it is necessary to consider and construe contracts and agree-
ments between the States, nor because the judgment or decree of the
court may affect the territorial limits of the jurisdiction of the States
that are parties to the suit.
3. The ordinance of the organic convention of the Commonwealth of Vir-
ginia, under which the State of West Virginia was organized, and the
act of May 13th, 1862, of the said Commonwealth, constitute a propo-
sition of the former State that the counties of Jefferson and Berkeley and
others might, on certain conditions, become part of the new State; and
the provisions of the constitution of the new State concerning those
counties are an acceptance of that proposition.
4. The act of Congress admitting the State of West Virginia into the Union
at the request of the Commonwealth of Virginia, with the provisions
for the transfer of those counties in the constitution of the new State,
and in the acts of.the Virginia legislature, is an implied consent to the
agreement of those States on that subject.
5. The consent required by the Constitution to make valid agreements be-
tween the'States need not necessarily be by an express assent to every
proposition of the agreement. In the present case the assent is an irre-
sistible inference from the legislation of Congress on the subject.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ussccases0366&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)