Morris v. United States
Encyclopedia
Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196 (1899), is a 5-to-2 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the bed under the Potomac River
between the District of Columbia and the state of Virginia
belonged to the United States government rather than nearby private landowners on the District of Columbia side.
, King of England, made a land grant in North America
to Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore
which became the Province of Maryland
(later the state of Maryland
). This grant set the boundary of Maryland at the low-water mark of the southern bank of the Potomac River. On September 27, 1688, King James II
made a land grant in North American to Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper
which became the Colony of Virginia (later the state of Virginia). This grant designated "the Potomac River" as the boundary of Virginia. The conflicting grants led to a long-running border dispute between Maryland and Virginia. The two states settled navigational and riparian water rights
in a compact in 1785, but the boundary dispute continued.
In 1788, the United States Constitution
was ratified. The Constitution established an independent zone known as the District of Columbia for the seat of the new government. The Residence Act
of 1790 provided for the new capital to be located on the Potomac River, and President
George Washington
was authorized by the United States Congress
to determine the exact location (which he did a year later). The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801
formally established Congressional jurisdiction over the new District. The Virginia retrocession of 1846-1847 returned that portion of the District of Columbia on the Virginia site of the Potomac River to the state of Virginia. This left in doubt the exact position of the District's border with Virginia (just as Maryland's southern border remained in doubt).
Shortly after the creation of the District of Columbia, the United States government sold certain plots of land to James M. Marshall; his brother, John Marshall
(later Chief Justice of the United States
); John L. Kidwell; the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company
; and several others.
Maryland and Virginia agreed to arbitrate their dispute, and in 1877 the Black-Jenkins Award (as the decision of the arbitration panel is known) placed Virginia's boundary with Maryland at the low-water mark on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.
In 1882, Congress passed legislation providing for the dredging of the Potomac River, and for the dredged material to be used to fill in various tidal basins, marshes, and shores. This created extensive new land along the northern shore of the Potomac River—land which adjoined that of the heirs of James Marshall, John Marshall, and John Kidwell, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. Congress passed legislation in August 1886 directing the Attorney General of the United States to protect the interests of the United States to the new land, and giving the courts jurisdiction over these claims.
The heirs and other claimants sued to win title to the lands.
George Shiras, Jr.
wrote the majority opinion for the Court, joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller
and Justices John Marshall Harlan
, David Josiah Brewer
, and Henry Billings Brown
.
Justice Shiras first laid out the facts of the case in a lengthy syllabus, and established various classes of claimants. The first issue Justice Shiras confronted was whether any of the parties could lay claim to the bed of the Potomac River (and thus the reclaimed lands built by the government). Shiras held that none of the heirs on the Virginia side of the river could make any claim to the riverbed. Neither Lord Colepeper, his heir Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
, nor any of Fairfax's heirs had ever seriously asserted title to the riverbed, and the Black-Jenkins Award clearly re-established that the boundary of Virginia ended at the low-water mark and did not extend to the riverbed. Relying on the Supreme Court's previous decision in Martin v. Waddell, 41 U.S. 367 (1842), Justice Shiras argued that none of the Maryland landholders could claim title to the riverbed, either. The majority held the original landholders were to hold the river and its bed in trust for the public, and that after the American Revolution
these public trusts passed into the possession of the state (in this case, Maryland and in due time the District of Columbia). Shiras distinguished Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee
, 11 U.S. 603 (1813) by noting that Fairfax's Devisee did not involve Maryland or any Marylander claimant. Even if the riverbed had been assigned to Lord Fairfax and his heirs, Shiras concluded, the logic of Martin v. Waddell still held and delivered the lands into the control of the federal government.
The majority dismissed the Kidwell heirs' claim to the newly created land under the same reasoning applied to the Marshall heirs. However, Kidwell's heirs noted that Congress had conveyed the property to Kidwell under a resolution adopted on February 16, 1839. The majority held, however, that Congress did not intend by that resolution to convey the riverbed. The majority relied heavily on the discussion in Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois
, 146 U.S. 387 (1892), Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1 (1894), and Mann v. Tacoma Land Company, 153 U.S. 273 (1894), and from the express language of the resolution (which withheld from the grant any lands for public purposes). Shiras produced a highly detailed history of the establishment of the boundaries of the District of Columbia, the plots within its boundaries, and how these plots were conveyed to the private landowners. He concluded that none of the survey reports conveyed an interest in any riverbed. Shiras also noted that in Potomac Steam-Boat Co. v. Upper Potomac Steam-Boat Co., 109 U.S. 672 (1884), the Supreme Court had held that public streets were not part of any plot, and that Water Street (which bounded the Kidwell land to the south) distinctly separated the private land not only from the street itself but also from the newly created lands beyond it.
As for the canal company's claims, the majority held that since none of the private landowners held riparian rights, the company could not obtain such rights from the private landowners. Nor was there any evidence that Congress was relinquishing its rights to Water Street or the river. The court dismissed the claims of the last landowners, whose property lay between Water Street and the shore, as being improperly based on unofficial land records and for being based on maps and other documents which did not accurately reflect the physical land.
The judgment was affirmed.
, joined by Justice Rufus Wheeler Peckham
, dissented.
Justice White concluded that nothing in the record showed that the United States intended to withdraw the riparian water rights of the landholders when it built Water Street and cut the landholders off from the Potomac River. White also engaged in a lengthy discussion of the laying out of the city's boundaries, and the conveyance of private property to the federal government. There could be no doubt, White argued, that the private landowners intended to give all of their riparian rights to the federal government, and there could be no doubt that the federal government intended to give all riparian rights to those to whom it sold the land. The majority's argument led to a tautology in which no riparian rights existed.
Justice White also examined the conveyance of the federal government's land to the new private landowners in depth as well. In his discussion, White interpreted the "incorrect" maps as indicating the riparian rights to which the new private landowners were entitled (rather than a problem of inaccurate mapping). White concluded several times that the federal government fully intended to convey riparian rights to the new landowners because the government and its agents repeatedly indicated in letters, memoranda, contracts of sale, and other documents and statements its expectation that the waterside landowners were to build and maintain docks, wharves, and quays and improve the riparian rights they enjoyed. To assume otherwise, White concluded, was nonsensical. Either the federal government intended to convey riparian rights, or the government deceptively contemplated building Water Street and cutting the new landowners off from their access. "...the first hypothesis is the one naturally to be assumed." "The contracts for the sale of water lots with riparian rights attached, the reports of the surveyors, and the action of the commissioners, all blend into a harmonious and perfect whole, working from an original conception to a successful consummation of a well-understood result. The contrary view produces discord and disarrangement..."
White also discussed the District of Columbia's lengthy history regarding the regulation of wharves and docks. In his view, the city's treatment of the wharves demonstrated that the wharves were private property on private riverbed land, not private property licensed to be emplaced on a riverbed held in the public trust. White interpreted Potomac Steam-Boat Co. as superimposing an easement
on top of existing riparian water rights. It was not, as the majority held, the government's purpose all along to bound the plots of land with Water Street.
Justice White would have overturned the judgment of the lesser court for determination of the riparian rights of the landowners in question.
in Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois in 1892 and more recently in Utah Division of State Lands v. United States, 482 U.S. 193, 203 (1987).
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
between the District of Columbia and the state of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
belonged to the United States government rather than nearby private landowners on the District of Columbia side.
Background
On June 20, 1632, Charles ICharles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
, King of England, made a land grant in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
to Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore
Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore
Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, 1st Proprietor and 1st Proprietary Governor of Maryland, 9th Proprietary Governor of Newfoundland , was an English peer who was the first proprietor of the Province of Maryland. He received the proprietorship after the death of his father, George Calvert, the...
which became the Province of Maryland
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...
(later the state of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
). This grant set the boundary of Maryland at the low-water mark of the southern bank of the Potomac River. On September 27, 1688, King James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
made a land grant in North American to Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper
Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper
Thomas Colpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper of Thoresway was the colonial governor of Virginia from 1677 to 1683.-Biography:...
which became the Colony of Virginia (later the state of Virginia). This grant designated "the Potomac River" as the boundary of Virginia. The conflicting grants led to a long-running border dispute between Maryland and Virginia. The two states settled navigational and riparian water rights
Riparian water rights
Riparian water rights are system for allocating water among those who possess land about its source. It has its origins in English common law...
in a compact in 1785, but the boundary dispute continued.
In 1788, the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
was ratified. The Constitution established an independent zone known as the District of Columbia for the seat of the new government. The Residence Act
Residence Act
The Residence Act of 1790, officially titled An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States, is the United States federal law that settled the question of locating the capital of the United States, selecting a site along the Potomac River...
of 1790 provided for the new capital to be located on the Potomac River, and President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
was authorized by the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
to determine the exact location (which he did a year later). The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801
District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801
The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 is an Organic Act enacted by the United States Congress, which incorporated the District of Columbia and divided the territory into two counties: Washington County to the north and east of the Potomac River and Alexandria County...
formally established Congressional jurisdiction over the new District. The Virginia retrocession of 1846-1847 returned that portion of the District of Columbia on the Virginia site of the Potomac River to the state of Virginia. This left in doubt the exact position of the District's border with Virginia (just as Maryland's southern border remained in doubt).
Shortly after the creation of the District of Columbia, the United States government sold certain plots of land to James M. Marshall; his brother, John Marshall
John Marshall
John Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches...
(later Chief Justice of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
); John L. Kidwell; the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal, and occasionally referred to as the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 parallel to the Potomac River in Maryland from Cumberland, Maryland to Washington, D.C. The total length of the canal is about . The elevation change of...
; and several others.
Maryland and Virginia agreed to arbitrate their dispute, and in 1877 the Black-Jenkins Award (as the decision of the arbitration panel is known) placed Virginia's boundary with Maryland at the low-water mark on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.
In 1882, Congress passed legislation providing for the dredging of the Potomac River, and for the dredged material to be used to fill in various tidal basins, marshes, and shores. This created extensive new land along the northern shore of the Potomac River—land which adjoined that of the heirs of James Marshall, John Marshall, and John Kidwell, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. Congress passed legislation in August 1886 directing the Attorney General of the United States to protect the interests of the United States to the new land, and giving the courts jurisdiction over these claims.
The heirs and other claimants sued to win title to the lands.
Majority opinion
Associate JusticeAssociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...
George Shiras, Jr.
George Shiras, Jr.
George Shiras, Jr. was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States who was nominated to the Court by Republican President Benjamin Harrison. At that time, he had 37 years of private legal practice, but had never judged a case...
wrote the majority opinion for the Court, joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller
Melville Fuller
Melville Weston Fuller was the eighth Chief Justice of the United States between 1888 and 1910.-Early life and education:...
and Justices John Marshall Harlan
John Marshall Harlan
John Marshall Harlan was a Kentucky lawyer and politician who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. He is most notable as the lone dissenter in the Civil Rights Cases , and Plessy v...
, David Josiah Brewer
David Josiah Brewer
David Josiah Brewer was an American jurist and an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 20 years.-Early life:...
, and Henry Billings Brown
Henry Billings Brown
Henry Billings Brown was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from January 5, 1891, to May 28, 1906. He was the author of the opinion for the Court in Plessy v...
.
Justice Shiras first laid out the facts of the case in a lengthy syllabus, and established various classes of claimants. The first issue Justice Shiras confronted was whether any of the parties could lay claim to the bed of the Potomac River (and thus the reclaimed lands built by the government). Shiras held that none of the heirs on the Virginia side of the river could make any claim to the riverbed. Neither Lord Colepeper, his heir Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron was the son of Thomas Fairfax, 5th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and of Catherine, daughter of Thomas Culpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper of Thoresway....
, nor any of Fairfax's heirs had ever seriously asserted title to the riverbed, and the Black-Jenkins Award clearly re-established that the boundary of Virginia ended at the low-water mark and did not extend to the riverbed. Relying on the Supreme Court's previous decision in Martin v. Waddell, 41 U.S. 367 (1842), Justice Shiras argued that none of the Maryland landholders could claim title to the riverbed, either. The majority held the original landholders were to hold the river and its bed in trust for the public, and that after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
these public trusts passed into the possession of the state (in this case, Maryland and in due time the District of Columbia). Shiras distinguished Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee
Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee
Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee, 11 U.S. 603 , was a United States Supreme Court case arising out of the acquisition of Fairfax land in the Northern Neck of the state of Virginia by the family and associates of John Marshall, including Robert Morris...
, 11 U.S. 603 (1813) by noting that Fairfax's Devisee did not involve Maryland or any Marylander claimant. Even if the riverbed had been assigned to Lord Fairfax and his heirs, Shiras concluded, the logic of Martin v. Waddell still held and delivered the lands into the control of the federal government.
The majority dismissed the Kidwell heirs' claim to the newly created land under the same reasoning applied to the Marshall heirs. However, Kidwell's heirs noted that Congress had conveyed the property to Kidwell under a resolution adopted on February 16, 1839. The majority held, however, that Congress did not intend by that resolution to convey the riverbed. The majority relied heavily on the discussion in Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois
Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois
The Supreme Court decision in Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387 , reaffirmed that each state in its sovereign capacity holds permanent title to all submerged lands within its borders and holds these lands in public trust. This is a foundational case for the Public Trust Doctrine...
, 146 U.S. 387 (1892), Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1 (1894), and Mann v. Tacoma Land Company, 153 U.S. 273 (1894), and from the express language of the resolution (which withheld from the grant any lands for public purposes). Shiras produced a highly detailed history of the establishment of the boundaries of the District of Columbia, the plots within its boundaries, and how these plots were conveyed to the private landowners. He concluded that none of the survey reports conveyed an interest in any riverbed. Shiras also noted that in Potomac Steam-Boat Co. v. Upper Potomac Steam-Boat Co., 109 U.S. 672 (1884), the Supreme Court had held that public streets were not part of any plot, and that Water Street (which bounded the Kidwell land to the south) distinctly separated the private land not only from the street itself but also from the newly created lands beyond it.
As for the canal company's claims, the majority held that since none of the private landowners held riparian rights, the company could not obtain such rights from the private landowners. Nor was there any evidence that Congress was relinquishing its rights to Water Street or the river. The court dismissed the claims of the last landowners, whose property lay between Water Street and the shore, as being improperly based on unofficial land records and for being based on maps and other documents which did not accurately reflect the physical land.
The judgment was affirmed.
Dissent
Justice Edward Douglass WhiteEdward Douglass White
Edward Douglass White, Jr. , American politician and jurist, was a United States senator, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the ninth Chief Justice of the United States. He was best known for formulating the Rule of Reason standard of antitrust law. He also sided with the...
, joined by Justice Rufus Wheeler Peckham
Rufus Wheeler Peckham
Rufus Wheeler Peckham was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1895 until 1909. He was known for his strong use of substantive due process to invalidate regulations of business and property. Peckham's namesake father was also a lawyer and judge, and a congressman...
, dissented.
Justice White concluded that nothing in the record showed that the United States intended to withdraw the riparian water rights of the landholders when it built Water Street and cut the landholders off from the Potomac River. White also engaged in a lengthy discussion of the laying out of the city's boundaries, and the conveyance of private property to the federal government. There could be no doubt, White argued, that the private landowners intended to give all of their riparian rights to the federal government, and there could be no doubt that the federal government intended to give all riparian rights to those to whom it sold the land. The majority's argument led to a tautology in which no riparian rights existed.
Justice White also examined the conveyance of the federal government's land to the new private landowners in depth as well. In his discussion, White interpreted the "incorrect" maps as indicating the riparian rights to which the new private landowners were entitled (rather than a problem of inaccurate mapping). White concluded several times that the federal government fully intended to convey riparian rights to the new landowners because the government and its agents repeatedly indicated in letters, memoranda, contracts of sale, and other documents and statements its expectation that the waterside landowners were to build and maintain docks, wharves, and quays and improve the riparian rights they enjoyed. To assume otherwise, White concluded, was nonsensical. Either the federal government intended to convey riparian rights, or the government deceptively contemplated building Water Street and cutting the new landowners off from their access. "...the first hypothesis is the one naturally to be assumed." "The contracts for the sale of water lots with riparian rights attached, the reports of the surveyors, and the action of the commissioners, all blend into a harmonious and perfect whole, working from an original conception to a successful consummation of a well-understood result. The contrary view produces discord and disarrangement..."
White also discussed the District of Columbia's lengthy history regarding the regulation of wharves and docks. In his view, the city's treatment of the wharves demonstrated that the wharves were private property on private riverbed land, not private property licensed to be emplaced on a riverbed held in the public trust. White interpreted Potomac Steam-Boat Co. as superimposing an easement
Easement
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...
on top of existing riparian water rights. It was not, as the majority held, the government's purpose all along to bound the plots of land with Water Street.
Justice White would have overturned the judgment of the lesser court for determination of the riparian rights of the landowners in question.
Assessment
In Morris v. United States, the Supreme Court dealt with what was known as a "top common," a tract of land between a river and the land intended to be occupied and sold to private landowners. Such practices were common in colonial America. Morris v. United States is considered an important case in the evolution of the law of rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies for water, for it established that such bodies of water and their beds belonged to the public in common and were held in trust by the state for its citizens. The Supreme Court further developed this public trust doctrinePublic trust doctrine
The public trust doctrine is the principle that certain resources are preserved for public use, and that the government is required to maintain them for the public's reasonable use.-Origins:...
in Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois in 1892 and more recently in Utah Division of State Lands v. United States, 482 U.S. 193, 203 (1987).