Court Opinion

ID: 9420034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:52:40.527573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:21.942481
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Reed,
dissenting.
In my view the controversy brought before this Court by the complaint of the United States against California seeks a judgment between State and Nation as to the ownership of the land underlying the Pacific Ocean, seaward of the ordinary low water mark, on the coast of California and within the three-mile limit. The ownership of that land carries with it, it seems to me, the ownership of any minerals or other valuables in the soil, as well as the right to extract them.
The determination as to the ownership of the land in controversy turns for me on the fact as to ownership in the original thirteen states of similar lands prior to the formation of the Union. If the original states owned the bed of the sea, adjacent to- their coasts, to the three-mile limit, then I think California has the same title or ownership to the lands adjacent to her coast. The original states were sovereignties in their own right, possessed of so much of the land underneath the adjacent seas as was generally recognized to be under their jurisdiction. The scope of their jurisdiction and the boundaries of their lands were coterminous. Any part of that territory which had not passed from their ownership by existing valid grants were and remained public lands of the respective states. California, as is customary, was admitted into *42the Union “on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever.” 9 Stat. 452. By § 3 of the Act of Admission, the public lands within its borders were reserved for disposition by the United States. “Public lands” was there used in its usual sense of lands subject to sale under general laws. As was the rule, title to lands under navigable waters vested in California as it had done in all other states. Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212; Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324, 338; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 49; Mann v. Tacoma Land Co., 153 U. S. 273, 284; Borax Consolidated, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U. S. 10, 17.
The authorities cited in the Court’s opinion lead me to the conclusion that the original states owned the lands under the seas to the three-mile limit. There were, of course, as is shown by the citations, variations in the claims of sovereignty, jurisdiction or ownership among the nations of the world. As early as 1793, Jefferson as Secretary of State, in a communication to the British Minister, said that the territorial protection of the United States would be extended “three geographical miles” and added:
“This distance can admit of no opposition, as it is recognized by treaties between some of the powers with whom we are connected in commerce and navigation, and is as little, or less, than is claimed by any of them on their own coasts.” H. Ex. Doc. No. 324, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 553-54.
If the original states did claim, as I think they did, sovereignty and ownership to the three-mile limit, California has the same rights in the lands bordering its littoral.
This ownership in California would not interfere in any way with the needs or rights of the United States in war or peace. The power of the United States is plenary over these undersea lands precisely as it is over every *43river, farm, mine, and factory of the nation. While no square ruling of this Court has determined the ownership of those marginal lands, to me the tone of the decisions dealing with similar problems indicates that, without discussion, state ownership has been assumed. Pollard v. Hagan, supra; Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U. S. 1, 52; The Abby Dodge, 223 U. S. 166; New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U. S. 361; 295 U. S. 694.