Muscle Shoals: Hearing Before ..., 69-2 on S.J. Res. 163 ..., February 26, 1927 |
Common terms and phrases
9 Port Alabama Power Co Alabama Power Company bama bed and tidewater bed of navigable beds and waters Bibb Graves Chairman Commission of Alabama committee common law common-law rule Congress construction Coosa River corporation Court of Alabama Dam Numbered dam or system doctrine ebbed and flowed Eslava fresh-water rivers Governor GRAVES Governor of Alabama grant held high-water mark Illinois land on navigable Lauderdale County legislature located at nitrate low water mark low-water mark Mobile River Muscle Shoals Commission national purpose navigable river navigable streams navigable waters nitrate plant numbered nitrogen nonnavigable ownership proposition public purposes question right of property riparian owner Secretary of Agriculture Secretary of War Senator HEFLIN Senator NORRIS interposing shores of navigable soil sovereign sovereignty steam plant located Supreme Court system of dams Tennessee River thereof thereto tide ebbed tide waters United vicinity of Muscle watercourse waters of navigable Webb Wilson Dam
Popular passages
Page 20 - First, the shores of navigable waters, and the soils under them, were not granted by the Constitution to the United States, but were reserved to the States respectively. Secondly, the new States have the same rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction over this subject as the original States. Thirdly, the right of the United States to the public lands, and the power of Congress to make all needful rules and regulations for the sale and disposition thereof, conferred no power to grant to the plaintiffs...
Page 21 - ... belong to the respective States within which they are found, with the consequent right to use or dispose of any portion thereof, when that can be done without substantial impairment of the interest of the public in the waters, and subject always to the paramount right of Congress to control their navigation so far as may be necessary for the regulation of commerce with foreign nations and among the States.
Page 13 - The public being interested in the use of such waters, the possession by private individuals of lands under them could not be permitted except by license of the Crown, which could alone exercise such dominion over the waters as would insure freedom in their use so far as consistent with the public interest.
Page 21 - When its power is exercised, so as to unnecessarily obstruct the navigation of the river or its branches, Congress may interfere and remove the obstruction. If the power of the State and that of the Federal government come in conflict, the latter must control and the former yield . . . But until Congress acts on the subject, the power of the State over bridges across its navigable streams is plenary.
Page 22 - The trust devolving upon the state for the public, and which can only be discharged by the management and control of property in which the public has an interest, cannot be relinquished by a transfer of the property. The control of the state for the purposes of the trust can never be lost...
Page 22 - The courts of the United States will construe the grants of the general government without reference to the rules of construction adopted by the States for their grants ; but whatever incidents or rights attach to the ownership of property conveyed by the government will be determined by the States, subject to the condition that their rules do not impair the efficacy of the grants, or the use and enjoyment of the property by the grantee. As an incident of such ownership, the right of the riparian...
Page 16 - ... of the States to regulate and control the shores of tide waters, and the land under them, is the same as that which is exercised by the Crown in England. In this country the same rule has been extended to our great navigable lakes, which are treated as inland seas ; and also, in some of the States, to navigable rivers, as the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, and, in Pennsylvania, to all the permanent rivers of the State; but it depends on the law of each State to what waters and to what extent...
Page 21 - ... jurisdiction, there seems to be no sound reason for adhering to the old rule as to the proprietorship of the beds and shores of such waters. It properly belongs to the States by their inherent sovereignty, and the United States has wisely abstained from extending (if it could extend) its survey and grants beyond the limits of high water. The cases in which this court has seemed, to hold a contrary view depended, as most cases must depend, on the local laws of the States in which the lands are...
Page 22 - First, that, in the absence of specific authority from Congress, a State cannot, by its legislation, destroy the right of the United States, as the owner of lands bordering on a stream, to the continued flow of its waters, so far, at least, as may be necessary for the beneficial uses of the government property...
Page 16 - If they choose to resign to the riparian proprietor rights which properly belong to them in their sovereign capacity, it is not for others to raise objections.