Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/275/279/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:17:54+00:00

Document:
1. A copy of memoranda and field notes of a survey of part of the boundary between Mexico and Texas, made in 1852 by a Mexican engineer by order of the Mexican Member of the Joint Boundary Commission, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was admissible in evidence upon authentication by the Mexican Boundary Commissioner having custody of the original. P. 275 U. S. 296.
2. A motion, by the party who produced it, to strike out an authenticated copy, accompanied by evidence adduced to prove that the party had been mistaken in believing that there was any original in the place from which the authentication was made, comes too late when deferred until the day when the taking of testimony is closed by mutual agreement, two years after the copy was introduced by the opposite party and treated by both sides as evidence in the case. P. 275 U. S. 297.
flowed in 1850, extending southwardly from the 32d parallel of North Latitude to the parallel of 31 degrees, 47 minutes in the course and location found and described in Section V(1) of the report of the Special Master in this case; the intersection of the east bank of the river with the 32d parallel is to be taken at a point 600 feet west from Monument No. 1 of Clark's Survey on that parallel made in and after 1859 in locating the Texas-United States boundary, as said monument No. 1 was reestablished by Joint Commissioners of the United States and Texas, appointed pursuant to a Joint Resolution of Congress passed in February, 1911, and the middle line of the channel is to be taken 150 feet from the east and west banks of the river respectively, as found by the Special Master. P. 275 U. S. 303.
4. That the testimony of ancient witnesses called by New Mexico as to their recollection of the old river is far from satisfactory, and does not, in view of the other evidence, sustain the burden resting on New Mexico of proving her claim that the location was farther east than the one claimed by Texas and found in this case. P. 275 U. S. 300.
5. That the greater weight of the evidence shows that Clark's Monument No. 1 did not coincide with his Station 1, but was located at least 2783 feet west thereof, substantially as reestablished by the Joint Commission of the United States and Texas above mentioned. P. 275 U. S. 300.
10. New Mexico, having explicitly declared in her Constitution of 1912 that her boundary between parallels of 32¡ and 31¡4' followed the main channel of the Rio Grande as it existed on the ninth day of September, 1850, and this having been confirmed by the United States by admitting her as a state with the line thus described as her boundary, and also approved by Texas in her pleadings, New Mexico cannot question this limitation of her boundary and lay claim to lands east of that line because of changes in the river course since 1850, due to the process of accretion. P. 275 U. S. 302.
Upon this single issue, a large mass of testimony was taken before examiners during a period of several years. Some of this, as bearing evidentially upon the location of the river in 1850, related incidentally to subsequent changes by accretions and avulsions. In 1924, New Mexico, on its motion, was allowed by the Court [Footnote 2] to take, subject to rebuttal, the additional testimony of one witness on the question whether, assuming that in what is known as the Country Club area, the river had been located in 1850 on the western side of the valley, as claimed by Texas, it had thereafter moved eastward by accretions. But, still claiming that in fact the river was located in 1850 on the eastern side of the valley, in a position that was inconsistent with such accretions, New Mexico neither averred in its motion that there had in fact been such accretions nor sought to amend its pleadings so as to allege either that they had taken place or that, if so, the boundary line had been changed by reason thereof. And the question as to the location of the middle of the channel in 1850 remained, as before, the sole issue under the pleadings.
Thereafter, the Court referred the cause to a special master, with directions to make special findings, based upon the entire record, on all material questions of fact, and report the same with his recommendations. [Footnote 3] The master, after a full hearing, [Footnote 4] made his report, to which both states filed exceptions. And the cause has been heard on the report and these exceptions.
The master made an elaborate and thorough report in which he considered at length the contentions of the two states and the salient features of the testimony. He found, on all the evidence, that the allegations of New Mexico as to the location of the Rio Grande "as it existed in the year 1850" were not sustained, and that the river then followed in general the course claimed by Texas, and, on the dates nearest to 1850 of which there was credible evidence, was located as particularly described in the report, [Footnote 5] and had an average width of 300 feet; but that thereafter, between 1852 and the filing of the bill, the channel in certain portions of the course, including the Country Club area, was moved eastward by reason of accretions. [Footnote 6] And he reported that the true boundary line when the bill was filed was the middle of the channel of the river in the location occupied after such accretions, as described in the report, [Footnote 7] and recommended that this be fixed 150 feet from the east and west banks, respectively, as found by him.
The evidence relating to this matter is so voluminous [Footnote 8] that it is entirely impracticable to refer to it in any detail. And while we have considered the various contentions relating to its many phases, we can here deal with the question of its weight only in the broadest outlines.
4. In support of its contention as to the location of the river, Texas further relied upon various old surveys, patents, and maps, and the testimony of its engineers in regard thereto as showing the true course of the river southwardly through the valley from the point where it crossed the parallel. These documents consisted mainly of the so-called Salazar-Diaz Survey of the Rio Grande, made in 1852 by Diaz, a Mexican engineer, by order of Salazar, the Mexican member of the Joint Commission under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo; [Footnote 19] a survey made in 1860, and a resurvey made in 1886, by Texas surveyors, of a Mexican grant on which Texas reissued a patent in 1886; surveys made by Texas surveyors between 1848 and 1873, several of which were bounded on the west by the river bank, on which Texas issued patents between 1860 and 1874; maps of surveys made in 1852-1853 and 1855 under the direction of the American surveyor for the Joint Boundary Commission under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the American member of the Joint Boundary Commission under the Gadsden Treaty, and agreed to by the joint Commissions, which showed the course of the river, and War Department maps of surveys made in 1854-1856 in the course of explorations for a railroad route to the Pacific Ocean, likewise showing the course of the river. And Texas also relied upon long acquiescence by the United States before the Territory of New Mexico had been admitted as a state.
original document in the archives of the International Boundary Commission under the Convention of 1889, [Footnote 20] which was authenticated by a certificate of the Mexican Commissioner. This was introduced in evidence by Texas, over the objection of New Mexico that the Commissioner had no authority to make such a certificate. [Footnote 21] A few days later, counsel for New Mexico stated that they would offer in evidence a copy of these memoranda and field notes properly certified by one of the departments of the Mexican government. They later furnished counsel for Texas a copy certified by a government officer in the City of Mexico. [Footnote 22] The copy so furnished was thereafter introduced by Texas, without objection, and engineers of both states were examined and cross-examined as to their work and calculations based on this copy, concerning the reproduction of the survey on the ground. Two years later, in 1918, on the day that the taking of testimony was closed by agreement, New Mexico moved to strike out both copies from the record on the ground that they were not so authenticated as to be admissible in evidence, and introduced evidence in support of this motion for the purpose of showing that there was not in fact any original of the document in the department in the City of Mexico, as they had believed when they furnished the copy to the counsel for Texas.
admissible upon authentication by the Mexican Boundary Commissioner having proper custody of the original. See United States v. Wiggins, 14 Pet. 334, 39 U. S. 346, and United States v. Acosta, 1 How. 24, 42 U. S. 26. And, under all the circumstances, the motion to exclude the second copy came too late, apart from any question as to its proper authentication. See Benson v. United States, 146 U. S. 325, 146 U. S. 333.
This case is not one calling for the application of the general rule established in Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U. S. 359; Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U. S. 23; Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U. S. 158, and Oklahoma v. Texas, 260 U. S. 606, as to changes in state boundary lines caused by gradual accretions on a river boundary.
This Commission was appointed under a Texas Act of 1854, 3 Gammel's Laws of the Texas, 1525, and an Act of Congress of 1858, 11 Stat. 310, c. 92, to run and mark the entire boundary line between Texas and the territories of the United States from the point where it left the Red River to its intersection with the Rio Grande. The Commissioners began at the Rio Grande, but soon separated, and the survey was continued by Clark, the United States commissioner. See generally Oklahoma v. Texas, 272 U. S. 21, 272 U. S. 26. His original report, with the accompanying field notes and maps, have long been lost; but a copy of portions thereof contained in Sen.Ex.Doc. No. 70, 47th, Cong., 1st Sess., in which the maps appear on a reduced scale, was introduced in evidence by stipulation.
26 Stat. 948, 971, c. 542; 10 Gammel's Laws of the Texas, 195. See Oklahoma v. Texas, supra, 272 U. S. 31.
"The contention of the constitutional convention of New Mexico . . . seems to be that the boundary line . . . from latitude 36.30¡ north to latitude 32¡ north is located west of the true one hundred and third meridian, . . . and that a strip of territory between the true . . . meridian and the line as now established and recognized by the United States and the State of Texas . . . of right belongs to New Mexico."

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