Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/213/78/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 03:07:56+00:00

Document:
The boundary line between Missouri and Kansas is and remains, notwithstanding its shifting position by erosion, the middle of the Missouri River from a point opposite the middle of the mouth of the Kansas or Kaw River.
The Act of June 7, 1836, c. 86, 5 Stat. 34, altering the western boundary of Missouri, is to be construed in the light of extrinsic facts; and, as so construed, its object was not to add territory to the state, but to substitute the Missouri River as a practical boundary, so far as possible, instead of an ideal line along a meridian.
The result of this decision is that an island in the Missouri River west of the center of its main channel, as that channel now exists, belongs to Kansas, notwithstanding such island is east of the original boundary line of Missouri.
of Congress on the petition of Missouri, that state was granted jurisdiction over such land, and its boundary was extended to the Missouri River. Since that time, the river has been moving eastward by gradual erosion, and, at the place in controversy, has passed to the east of the original line. The land in question lies to the east of the line, and the claim of Missouri is that, whatever the change in the river, its jurisdiction remains to that line.
Missouri fortifies its claim by an allegation that the line at the place in controversy never was changed. According to the bill, the line as surveyed began at a point on the left bank of the Missouri River, opposite the mouth of the Kansas or Kaw, for two miles and a half "practically conformed with the left bank of the Missouri," and, by the shifting of the stream, was in the river when the act of Congress was passed, so that there was no land to be added there, and the original boundary remained. Kansas denies that the original line conformed to the left bank of the river, and says that, even if Missouri is right with regard to the the Missouri River, the boundary between the the Missouri river the boundary between the states from the north to the point where the Missouri and the Kansas meet.
"by extending the north boundary of this state in a straight line westward until it strikes the Missouri, so as to include within this state the small district of country between that line and the river."
There is more, but the main point of the memorial is to secure a natural barrier between Indians and whites, and, in addition, easier access to "the only great road to market." A few square miles, more or less, of savage territory were of no account, but the object was to get the river for a bound.
"when the Indian title to all the lands lying between the State of Missouri and the Missouri River shall be extinguished, the jurisdiction over said lands shall be hereby ceded to the State of Missouri, and the western boundary of said state shall be then extended to the Missouri River."
These are the only material words. Act of June 7, 1836, c. 86. 5 Stat. 34.
"That the boundary of the state be so altered and extended as to include all that tract of land lying on the north side of the Missouri River, and west of the present boundary of this state, so that the same shall be bounded on the south by the middle of the main channel of the Missouri River, and on the north by the present northern boundary line of the state, as established by the Constitution, when the same is continued in a right line to the west, or to include so much of said tract of land as Congress may assent."
Amendment ratified at the Session of 1834-1835, Art. II, § 4. Mo.Rev.Sts. 1856, p. 91. Then, on December 16, 1836, the state assented to the act of Congress by "An Act to Express the Assent of the Missouri to the Extension of the Western Boundary Line of the state." Laws 1st Sess. 9th Genl. Assembly, p. 28; and, on January 17, 1837, a copy was transmitted to Congress by the President. Meantime, on September 17, 1836, a treaty was made with the Indians in which they expressed their belief in the advantage of a natural boundary between them and the whites, and released their claims. Indian affairs. Laws and Treaties. Compiled by Kappler, 1904, p. 468. On March 28, 1837, the President, by proclamation, declared that the Indian title to lands had been extinguished in pursuance of the condition in the act of Congress, and the act went into full effect. 5 Stat. 802. Appendix No. 1.
by the memorial, as we have said, not to gain some square miles of wilderness, but to substitute the Missouri River for an ideal line as the western boundary of the state, so far as possible -- that is, from the northern boundary to the mouth of the Kaw. That this was understood by Missouri to be the effect of the act is shown by a succession of statutes declaring the boundaries of the river counties in this part. They all adopted the middle of the main channel of the river; beginning with the act that organized the County of Platte, approved December 31, 1838, Mo.Laws, 1838, pp. 23-25, and going on through the Revised Statutes of 1855, p. 459 § 12 (Clay), p. 466, § 33 (Platte), p. 478, § 65 (Jackson), etc., to 2 Rev.Stat. 1879, c. 94, §§ 5177, 5198, and 5237. The construction is contemporaneous and long continued, and we regard it as clear. It is confirmed by the cases of Cooley v. Golden, 52 Mo.App. 229, and St. Joseph & G. I. R. Co. v. Devereux, 41 F. 14, both of which cases notice that the act extended the boundary to the river, and not merely to the bank.
It follows upon our interpretation that it is unnecessary to consider the evidence as to precisely where the line, as surveyed, ran from opposite the mouth of the Kansas or Kaw. If the understanding both of the United States and the state had not been a wholesale adoption of the river as a boundary, without any niceties, still, as the cession "to the river" extended to the center of the stream, it might be argued that even on Missouri's evidence, there probably was a strip ceded at the place in dispute. But, from the view that we take, such refinements are out of place. The act has to be read with reference to extrinsic facts, because it fixes no limits except by implication. We are of opinion that the limit implied is a point in the middle of the Missouri opposite the middle of the mouth of the Kaw.

References: § 4
 § 12
 § 33
 § 65
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