Shively v. Bowlby

Citations

• 152 U.S. 1
• 14 S. Ct. 548
• 38 L. Ed. 331
• 1894 U.S. LEXIS 2090

Syllabus

<p>This court has jurisdiction to review by writ of .error a judgment of the highest court of the State of Oregon, deciding that a donation land claim under the act of Congress of September 27, 1850, c. 76, of land bounded by tide water, passed no title or right below high water mark, as against a subsequent grant from the State.</p> <p>By the common law, the title in the soil of the sea, or of arms of the sea, below high water mark, except so far as private rights in it have been acquired by express grant, or by prescription or usage, is in the Kin£, subject to the public rights of navigation and fishing; and no one can erect a building or wharf upon it, without license.</p> <p>Upon the American Revolution, the title and the dominion of the tide waters and of the lands under them vested in the several States of the Union within their respective borders, subject to the rights surrendered by the Constitution to the United States.</p> <p>In the original States, by various laws and usages, the owners of lands bordering on tide waters were allowed greater rights and privileges in the shore below high water mark, than they had in England.</p> <p>The new States admitted into the Union since the adoption of the Constitution have the same rights as the original States in the tide waters, and in the lands under them, within their respective jurisdictions.</p> <p>The United States, upon acquiring a Territory, whether by cession from one of the States, or by treaty with a foreign country, or by discovery and settlement, take the title and the dominion of lands below high water mark of tide waters for the benefit of the whole people, and in trust for the future States to be created out of the Territory.</p> <p>Upon the question how far the title extends of the owner of land bounding on a river actually navigable, but above the ebb and flow of the tide, there is a diversity in the laws' of the different States; but the prevailing doctrine now is that he does not, as in England,