ginning, shall become and form a part of the said State of Louisiana, and be subject to the constitution and laws thereof, in the same manner, and for all intents and purposes, as if it had been included within the original boundaries of the said State."

This added territory is shown on map or diagram No. 2 (ante p. 5). The eastern boundary of Louisiana was thereby moved eastward from the Mississippi to Pearl river, and Louisiana was given the country south of the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and north of the boundary formed by the river Iberville, the middle of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain and the Rigolets.

The river Iberville is called on this map Bayou Manchac, and is still known by that name. The Rigolets is a gut connecting the waters of Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne, both of which are bodies of salt water and were originally arms of the sea. In order to reach the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico from the middle of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain the line ran through the Rigolets into Lake Borgne, and after the addition to the State by the act of April 14, 1812, the eastern boundary line of Louisiana entered Lake Borgne to the south by Pearl river as well as the Rigolets. To get from Lake Borgne into the open water of the Gulf of Mexico beyond Chandeleur Islands and around to the western boundary of Louisiana, it was necessary, as Louisiana contends, to follow the deep water channel north of Half Moon or Grand Island, through Mississippi Sound, and thence by the pass between Cat Island and Isle à Pitre, north of the Chandeleur Islands, into the open Gulf: Many maps are given in the record, some made at dates long prior to the admission of Louisiana as a State, some at that time, and some within a few years thereafter, and all show the St. Bernard peninsula to be geographically a true part of the State of Louisiana, or of an area of country that was to form the State, and that the said peninsula projected itself as a well-defined arm of land out into the waters of the Gulf, branching off as a projection from the main body of land com

posing the State, and forming a part of it. We observe that on many of these early maps the term "peninsula" is applied to this projection, and that designation is sufficiently accurate for the purpose of description.

November 14, 1803, President Jefferson sent a communication to Congress, in which, among other things, he said:

"The object of the following pages is to consolidate the information respecting the present State of Louisiana, furnished to the Executive by several individuals among the best informed on the subject.

"Of the province of Louisiana no general map, sufficiently correct to be depended upon, has been published, nor has any been yet procured from a private source. It is, indeed, probable that surveys have never been made upon so extensive a scale as to afford the means of laying down the various regions of a country which in some of its parts appears to have been but imperfectly explored.

"St. Bernardo.

"On the east side of the Mississippi, about five leagues below New Orleans, and at the head of the English Bend, is a settlement known by the name of the Poblacion de St. Bernardo, or the Terre au Bœufs, extending on both sides of a creek or drain, whose head is contiguous to the Mississippi, and which flowing eastward, after a course of eighteen leagues, and dividing itself into two branches, falls into the sea and Lake Borgne. This settlement consists of two parishes, almost all the inhabitants of which are Spaniards from the Canaries, who content themselves with raising fowls, corn and garden stuff for the market at New Orleans. The lands cannot be cultivated to any great distance from the banks of the creek, on account of the vicinity of the marsh behind them, but the place is susceptible of great improvement, and of affording another communication to small craft of from eight to ten feet draught, between the sea and the Mississippi."

"Country from Plaquemines to the sea, and effect of the hurricanes:

2

"From Plaquemines to the sea is twelve or thirteen leagues. The country is low, swampy, chiefly covered with reeds, and having little or no timber, and no settlement whatever. It may be necessary to mention here, that the whole lower part of the country, from the English Turn downwards, is subject to overflowing in hurricanes, either by the recoiling of the river, or reflux from the sea on each side; and, on more than one occasion, it has been covered from the depth of two to ten feet, according to the descent of the river, whereby many lives were lost, horses and cattle swept away, and a scene of destruction laid. The last calamity of this kind happened in 1794, but fortunately they are not frequent. In the preceding year the engineer who superintended the erection of the fort at Plaquemines was drowned in his house near the fort, and the workmen and garrison escaped only by taking refuge on an elevated spot in the fort, on which there were notwithstanding two or three feet of water. These hurricanes have generally been felt in the month of August. Their greatest fury lasts about twelve hours. They commence in the southeast, veer about to all the points of the compass, are felt most severely below, and seldom extend more than a few leagues above New Orleans. In their whole course they are marked with ruin and desolation. Until that of 1793, there had been none felt from the year 1780." This communication was, of course, before Congress when the act of 1812, admitting Louisiana, was approved, and the peninsula was clearly recognized as forming part of the parish of St. Bernard, as was its marshy character and that of the adjoining parish.

By the act of Congress, approved March 1, 1817, 3 Stat. 348, c. 23, the inhabitants of the western part of the then Mississippi Territory were authorized to form for themselves a state constitution and to be admitted into the Union with the following boundaries: "Beginning on the river Mississippi at the point where the southern boundary line of the State of Tennessee strikes the same; thence east along the said boundary line to the Tennessee river; thence up the same to the mouth of Bear

creek; thence by a direct line to the northwest corner of the county of Washington; 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; thence up said river to the thirty-first degree of north latitude; thence west along the said degree of latitude to the Mississippi river; thence up the same to the beginning.” The people in convention, August 15, 1817, formed a constitution and state government (approved subsequently by popular vote), and the State was admitted by resolution December 10, 1817, 3 Stat. 472.

The State of Alabama was admitted by the act of March 2, 1819, 3 Stat. 489, c. 47, which provided: “That the said State shall consist of all the territory included within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning at the point where the thirty-first degree of north latitude intersects the Perdido river; thence, east, to the western boundary line of the State of Georgia; thence along said line, to the southern boundary line of the State of Tennessee; thence, west, along said boundary line, to the Tennessee river; thence, up the same, to the mouth of Bear creek; thence, by a direct line, to the northwest corner of Washington county; thence, due south, to the Gulf of Mexico; thence, eastwardly, including all the islands within six leagues of the shore, to the Perdido river; and thence, up the same to the beginning."

The islands, marsh or otherwise, claimed by Louisiana in this case were all within three leagues of her coast. The act admitting Mississippi was passed five years after the Louisiana act, yet Mississippi claims thereunder the disputed territory, as being islands within eighteen miles of her shore. If it were true that this repugnancy between the two acts existed, it is enough to say that Congress, after the admission of Louisiana, could not take away any portion of that State and give it to the State of Mississippi. The rule, Qui prior est tempore, potior in jure, applied, and section three of article IV of the Constitution does not permit the claims of any particular State to be

prejudiced by the exercise of the power of Congress therein conferred.

But it is said that the act admitting Louisiana, the act admitting Mississippi, and the act admitting Alabama must be construed as in pari materia; and, being so construed, that Congress must be held to have had in view in the three acts a division of the coast along the Gulf of Mexico so as to equalize the water frontage of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama.

We do not regard these acts as in pari materia in any proper sense. They provided for the admission of three separate States, and the subject of each was not only not identical with, but not even similar to, that of the others. They did not form part of a homogeneous whole, of a common system, so as to allow a claimant under the later act to successfully contend that it changed the earlier act by construction or effected such change because declaratory of the meaning of the prior act.

And assuming for the sake of argument that the Louisiana and Mississippi acts were irreconcilably inconsistent, but remembering that when Louisiana was admitted into the Union, the territory now composing the coast counties of Mississippi, that is, below the thirty-first degree of north latitude, was not actually a part of the Mississippi Territory but was in dispute between the United States and Spain, the theory of any preconcerted design in regard to the water front of the two States is too unreasonable to be entertained.

In the treaty of peace between England, France and Spain of February 10, 1716, Article VII, on the subject of the boundary line separating the dominions of England and France in the New World, provided: "That for the future the confines between the dominions of His Brittanic Majesty and those of His Most Christian Majesty in that part of the world shall be fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along the river Mississippi from its source to the river Iberville, and from thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea." According to this treaty England retained the port of Mobile and its river and everything east