by the consent of the legislature of State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings." [Emphasis ours.]

And that all real estate not, so acquired by the United States was under the jurisdiction and control of the respective States of the Union. But on June 23, 1947, in the case of United States v. California (not yet published in book form) the United States Supreme Court determined that all submerged lands from low-water mark seaward to the 3-mile limit belonged to the United States Government as an attribute of Federal sovereignty. While the Court claims that it does not overrule Pollard et al. v. Hagan et al. (44 U. S. (3 How.) 212, 11 Law Ed. 565), but only refusing to extend the doctrine therein announced, we cannot help realizing that in the Pollard opinion the United States Supreme Court distinctly said:

"By the preceding course of reasoning we have arrived at these general conclusions: First. The shores of navigable waters, and the soils under them, were not granted by the Constitution to the United States, but were reserved to the States respectively. Second. The new States have the same rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction over this subject as the Original States. Third. The right of the United States to the public lands, and the power of Congress to make all needful rules and regulations for the sale and disposition thereof, conferred no power to grant to the plaintiffs the land in controversy in this case." [Emphasis ours.]

In the emphasized part of the excerpt from that opinion of the Court there are no restrictions or limitations of the extent of the findings with respect to the jurisdiction of the States, and for many years both the Federal Government and the State governments regarded this finding as being in complete harmony with clause 17, section 8, article 1, of the Federal Constitution. Neither State nor Federal judiciary dreamed that the Federal Government had or could acquire any added power except by delegation from the States through an amendment to the Federal Constitution. We are not overlooking clause 3, of section 8, article 1, Federal Constitution, which provides: "The Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes."

*

But that grant of power was regulatory and not proprietary. It was a regulation of commerce only, and there is no intimation to regulate the disposition of real estate or the ownership thereof. The grant of power in clause 17 is distinctly proprietary and absolute. It would not have been necessary to insert clause 17 in the Constitution if power to regulate the disposition and ownership of land had been embraced in clause 3, above quoted. But the constitutional fathers, in granting to the Federal Congress the proprietary powers over real estate by clause 17, were so sensitive as to the rights of a State to control all land within their boundaries that they went to the trouble of enumerating the instances and purposes for which Congress could acquire land under the provisions of clause 17. Unless they intended to limit the power of the Federal Congress with respect to the purposes for which they could acquire real estate, it would have been foolishness to have enumerated specific purposes as they did in that clause. A Convention that withheld from the Federal Congress the power to acquire a site for the Federal Capitol until it had obtained the consent of the legislature of the State in which that Capitol was to be located never intended, and could not conceive, that that Federal Congress would assume it possessed as an inherent right of sovereignty a paramount ownership and control in a 3-mile wide border of submerged lands under the ocean abutting the individual States on the Atlantic coast.

The 1787 Constitutional Convention was creating a new type of National Government with no precedent in the history of the world to guide them in the creation of this new type of a Federal Government to deal only with such powers as the separate States could not exercise without conflicting interests. That convention intended to retain within the jurisdiction of the State exclusive power over local affairs. All nationalities regard the ownership, sale, or devolution of real property a subject of local law. The Federal courts sacredly recognized the exclusive control of all real estate as local property of the State wherein located before their conception of the Federal Government became Yankeeized so that Congress could exercise power deliberately withheld by the tenth amendment. They have now reached the conclusion that the creature, the Federal Government, is superior to its creators, the respective States of the Federal Union. If it is contended that the California opinion clearly states

"The Government does not deny that under the Pollard rule, as explained în later cases, California has a qualified ownership of lands under inland naviga

ble waters, such as rivers, harbors, and even tidelands down to the low-water mark." [Emphasis ours.]

And that with such a statement in the opinion that the States should not be uneasy as to their proprietorship in submerged lands abutting and under her inland streams, lakes, and bays, and likewise should not be uneasy as to the title of her grantees to such lands who have erected valuable improvements thereon. Then we call your attention to the word "qualified" inserted in the above excerpt as a modifier of the word "ownership." In addition to that modification this pronouncement is followed with a statement as follows:

"It does question the validity of the rationale in the Pollard case that ownership of such water areas, any more than ownership of uplands, is a necessary incident of the State sovereignty contemplated by the 'equal footing' clause." We should remember that Kentucky was admitted into the Federal Union after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and that we, as well as California, come under the "equal footing" clause. This fact drives us to an examination of the reasons set forth by the Court as a basis for its conclusions that

"The Federal Government, rather than the State, has paramount rights in and power over that belt, and incident to which is full dominion over the sources of soil under the water area, including oil." [Emphasis ours.]

When we search through the opinion for the basic reason upon which the Court reached this conclusion, we find that it states:

"The ocean, even its 3-mile belt, is of vital consequence to the Nation in its desire to engage in commerce and live in peace with the world; it also becomes of crucial importance should it ever again become impossible to preserve the peace. And as peace and world commerce are the paramount responsibilities of the Nation rather than an individual State, so if wars come, they must be fought by the Nation. (See Chy Lung v. Freeman (92 U. S. 275, 279; 23 L. ed. 550, 551).) The State is not equipped in our constitutional system with the power or facilities for exercising the responsibilities which would be concomitant with the dominion which it seeks. Conceding that the State has been authorized to exercise local police-power functions in the part of the marginal belt within its declared boundaries, these do not detract from the Federal Government's paramount rights in and over this area." [Emphasis ours.]

By the emphasized part of the above excerpt from the California opinion, it is disclosed that the Supreme Court is basing its decision with respect to the Federal Government's paramount rights to the area in controversy under the grant of power to the Federal Congress by clause 3, section 8, article 1, of the Federal Constitution, which grants to the Federal Government, as heretofore stated, a regulatory power over foreign commerce, and the grant to the Federal Government of its war powers.

If the Supreme Court's reasoning is correct, which we do not concede, then clause 3 gives to the Federal Government the same power over "interstate commerce" that it gives to it over "foreign commerce." We know that the war powers of the Federal Government over upland is just as great as it is over the ocean, and this process of reasoning which the Supreme Court has followed in the California case with respect to the Federal Government's paramount power over the submerged lands from low-water mark seaward to the 3-mile limit logically gives to the same Federal Government paramount powers over inland rivers, lakes, and bays for the simple reason that its war powers are just as great on land as they are on sea, and its interstate commerce powers are just as great as its powers over foreign commerce. No one doubts the power of the Federal Government when at war to commandeer any property necessary for military purposes, whether that property is in, under, or over land or sea, but that power was never intended to be exercised except when war necessities demand its exercise. We know from past history that when the Supreme Court determines to destroy any reserve power of a State it draws its authority so to do out of the void of clause 3 above quoted, or the fourteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution.

We think that the error into which the Supreme Court has drifted in this opinion is in assuming that because the Federal Congress has been given regulatory power over commerce that the power embraces proprietary rights to the bed of the ocean to the 3-mile limit. That because it has a war power, to commandeer property necessary for the defense of the Nation, when at war, that this fact vests ownership of the bed of the ocean to the 3-mile limit in the United States. They are ascribing to our Federal Government limited to delegated powers, the assumed inherent powers of the monarchies and kingdoms of Europe and Asia. The reason that we are so sure that we are correct in our conclusion is that the power of the Federal Government to acquire land for

public-road purposes was discussed by President Madison in the last message he wrote to the Federal Congress on March 3, 1817. Public roads and canals were not mentioned in clause 17, supra, as an object for which the Federal Government could acquire land by the consent of the legislature of the State where the land was located. In that veto message, he said:

"If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill cannot confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress, are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

"I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals, and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it cannot be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction, and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing, also, that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on the definite partition of powers between the general and the State government, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress, as proposed in this bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers, to the same wisdom and virtue in the Nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it, as experience might suggest. [Emphasis ours.]

We hope we will be pardoned for believing that President James Madison, who prepared the plan that was adopted by the Convention and helped to formulate the Federal Constitution, who sat upon the speaker's stand and took notes in shorthand of the discussion of every clause embraced in that instrument, knew more about the extent of the powers that Convention intended to grant to the Federal Constitution than any living man today, including the learned members of the greatest court on earth.

Our National Government is different from other national governments in that it only possesses such powers as have been delegated to it. All other powers were reserved by the States or the people in the tenth amendment, and if the Federal Government wants to exercise other powers than those powers, it must go to the people and get permission to exercise them delegated by an amendment to the Federal Constitution. This is the very foundation principle of our Federal Constitution. But there is no appeal from the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. As good citizens we must accept and abide by that Court's determination. It is useless for us to call your attention to the fact that in the case of Knowlton v. Moore (178 U. S. 41, 58, 44 L. Ed. 976, 977), Mr. Justice White, in speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States, said:

“Of course, in considering the power of Congress to impose death duties, we eliminate all thought of a greater privilege to do so than exists as to any other form of taxation, as the right to regulate successions is vested in the States and not in Congress." [Emphasis ours.]

That was written before the fiction of "inherent" powers of Federal sovereignty had been invented.

But it is clear that if the Supreme Court's reasoning is correct as to its power over submerged land, from low-water mark seaward to the 3-mile limit, that it can logically apply the same reasoning and take control of all submerged lands on the lakes, bays, and rivers of inland United States. Under these circumstances neither the States can feel at ease in exercising their jurisdiction over those lands, nor the States' grantees who made improvements on such lands, unless the Federal Congress should adopt some act similar to Senate bill 1988, disclosing that the Federal Government relinquishes all claim as to its paramount powers over said iniand submerged lands that have been controlled by the States continuously from July 4, 1776.

This department hopes that the entire congressional delegation will either support Senate bill 1988 or some bill that will remove the doubt of the right of the States to exercise the powers that they have always exercised over the submerged lands without question until the Supreme Court rendered its opinion in the California case.

Respectfully submitted.

A. E. FUNK, Attorney General.

RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED STATES WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION, INC., WASHINGTON, D. C. FAVORING S. 1988 (CONFIRMING STATE OWNERSHIP OF LANDS UNDER NAVIGABLE WATERS)

Whereas since the formation of the United States ownership of land beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the separate States has been recognized as belonging to the respective States; and

Whereas the recent Supreme Court decision in U. S. v. California holds that regardless of "mere property ownership" the Federal Government has paramount power to take the natural resources from beneath such lands along the coast due to its responsibility for national defense and international relations. thereby creating a new theory of law whigh clouds State rights, property and revenues, and may be extended later even to private property; and

Whereas, Governors and attorneys general of 46 States, the American Bar Association, National Reclamation Association, American Association of Port Authorities and many other organizations have called upon Congress to confirm State ownership of these lands and make it clear that State and private property cannot be taken except by due process of law and with just compensation: now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Executive Committee of the United States Wholesale Grocers' Association, Inc., at a special called meeting in Washington, D. C., this 27th day of February 1948, That we endorse the proposed legislation now being considered in Senate bill 1988 and recommend its adoption and approval by the President; and that a copy of this resolution be sent to Members of Congress and President Truman. UNITED STATES WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION, INC., W. A. LIVINGSTON, President, Executive Committee.

REMARKS OF HON. ED GOSSETT, OF TEXAS

Mr. Speaker, I wish to offer for the record a resolution adopted by the Senate of the State of Mississippi endorsing S. 1988.

This resolution has the endorsement and approval of all Representatives in the House from the State of Mississippi, to wit: Hon. Thomas G. Abernethy, Hon. William M. Colmer, Hon. John E. Rankin, Hon. Jamie L. Whitten, Hon. William M. Whittington, Hon. John Bell Williams, and Hon Arthur Winstead.

A Senate concurrent resolution memorializing the Congress of the United States to speedily and finally adopt S. 1988, confirming and establishing title of the States to lands and resources in and beneath navigable waters within State boundaries

Whereas after more than 150 years of possession and unquestioned ownership, by the sovereign States, of the lands and resources in and beneath navigable waters within their respective boundaries, certain Federal agencies are now making unwarranted attempts to completely take over this property, as the property of the United States Government; and

Whereas since the founding of our Nation the States have exercised sovereignty over the tidelands and submerged lands within their territorial jurisdiction; that after these many years of recognized ownership by the States and after said property has now become valuable because of oil discovery in certain areas, it is manifestly unfair and unjust to the States for the Federal Government to continue its efforts to force its claim for any part of this property: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the senate, the house of representatives concurring therein, That the Congress of the United States be memorialized to speedily and finally enact said S. 1988, that the States may be assured their rights in said property will no longer be questioned, and that said property may continue to receive the management and supervision of the respective States; be it further

Resolved, That the secretary of the senate be directed to send copies of this concurrent resolution to each House of the Congress and to the Sentaors and Representatives in Congress from Mississippi.

STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN OLIN E. TEAGUE, SIXTH TEXAS DISTRICT, BEFORE THE JOINT HOUSE-SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON TIDELANDS

Mr. Chairman, I wish to make a brief general statement concerning H. R. 5380, which I have introduced and which will quitclaim our tidelands and waters to our States.

I am one of those who believe that we should keep our government close to home. It is my belief that this committee is considering one of the most important questions before the Congress at this time.

I am not a lawyer, and I will not attempt to discuss any legal angles concerning this case, but common sense tells me that after the Supreme Court ruled 102 years ago that the tidelands belong to the States and since that time this case has been cited with approval by other courts 296 times. The attorneys general of the United States have followed this ruling made 102 years ago 49 times; the Federal Government has recognized it 30 times by its buying or leasing land from the States; the Department of Interior recognized it 31 times. Relying upon these decisions and opinions billions of dollars have been invested in these waters and the soil under them. If ever property rights were thought to be settled, this was it.

In Texas we have felt secure in our title to our submerged land and all public lands, because when Texas came into the Union in 1845 the question of ownership of the State's public lands was in issue, and the United States Congress expressly agreed that Texas would retain title to these lands. Every Texan is personally interested in this case.

Every Texan has some oil and owns some tidelands because the Texas Legisla ture has dedicated all mineral revenues from tidelands to the public school funds of Texas, therefore every Texan receives some benefits in the education of our children and in less direct taxation for school purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to include in this statement three good reasons which justify the outrage that most Texas citizens feel over the attempt of the Federal Government to seize control of our submerged lands in the Gulf of Mexico. These reasons were recently given by Mr. Price Daniel, the attorney general of Texas, and I do not believe that I could improve upon them:

First, this property commonly known as the tidelands, was included within the original boundaries of the Republic of Texas. Upon annexation to the United States, Texas reserved all the vacant and unappropriated lands within its boundaries and d.d not grant or cede any of our submerged lands to the Federal Government. For 100 years these submerged lands have been recognized as the property of the State of Texas. Before our annexation agreement, the Supreme Court of the United States had twice decided that the Original Thirteen States and those subsequently admitted "upon an equal footing" owned all lands beneath the navigable waters within their respective boundaries. By both this established general rule of law and by the special provisions of the annexation agreement, Texas has had every right to believe that our State ownership of submerged lands would be respected and defended by the Federal Government. To deny State ownership and attempt to seize control of these lands and resources after 100 years of State ownership is to destroy the previous general rule of law upon which we were entitled to rely and to reduce our special annexation agreement to a mere scrap of paper.

Secondly, every Texan has a direct and personal interest in continuation of State ownership, because all the revenues from these lands were dedicated many years ago to the public school fund of Texas. Already these lands have yielded over $25,000,000 to the public schools of Texas. It is certain that they will yield many more millions annually within a few years. If the lands are lost, the taxpayers of Texas will have to make up the millions of dollars which would be taken away from our public schools each year.

Thirdly, practically all Texas citizens believe that the powers and the rights of the Federal Government are limited to those expressly or impliedly granted to the national sovereign by the Constitution, and that all other rights and powers are reserved by the tenth amendment to the States and to the people. We prefer to resist all attempts of the Federal Government to centralize other rights and powers in Washington at the expense of the States and the people. Federal claims and the decision of the Supreme Court in the California case announce a new theory of inherent Federal rights to control lands and resources even though such rights were not delegated to it by the Constitution and even though the lands are not owned by the Federal Government. It is a new theory of super-Federal powers which, if allowed to stand, would destroy State rights and responsibilities,