None of the foregoing cases, nor others which we have decided, are sufficient to require us to extend the Pollard inland-water rule so as to declare that California owns or has paramount rights in or power over the three-mile belt under the ocean. The question of who owned the bed of the sea only became of great potential importance at the beginning of this century when oil was discovered there."1 As a consequence of this discovery, California passed an Act in 1921 authorizing the granting of permits to California residents to prospect for oil and gas on blocks of land off its coast under the ocean. Cal. Stats. 1921, c. 303. This state statute, and others which followed it, together with the leasing practices under them, have precipitated this extremely important controversy, and pointedly raised this state-federal conflict for the first time. Now that the question is here, we decide for the reasons we have stated that California is not the owner of the three-mile marginal belt along its coast, and that the Federal Government rather than the state has paramount rights in and power over that belt, an incident to which is full dominion over the resources of the soil under that water area, including oil.

Fourth. Nor can we agree with California that the Federal Government's paramount rights have been lost by reason of the conduct of its agents. The state sets up such a defense, arguing that by this conduct the Government is barred from enforcing its rights by reason of principles similar to laches, estoppel, adverse possession. It would serve no useful purpose to recite the incidents in detail upon which the state relies for these defenses. Some of them are undoubtedly consistent with a belief on the part of some Government agents at the time that California owned all, or at least a part of the three-mile belt. This belief was indicated in the substantial number of instances in which the Government acquired title from the states to lands located in the belt; some decisions of the Department of Interior have denied applications for federal oil and gas leases in the California coastal belt on the ground that California owned the lands. Outside of court decisions following the Pollard rule, the foregoing are the types of conduct most nearly indicative of waiver upon which the state relies to show that the Government has lost its paramount rights in the belt. Assuming that Government agents could be conduct, short of a congressional surrender of title or interest, preclude the Government from asserting its legal rights, we cannot say it has done so here. As a matter of fact, the record plainly demonstrates that until the California oil issue began to be pressed in the thirties, neither the states nor the Government had reason to focus attention on the question of which of them owned or had paramount rights in or power over the three-mile belt. And even assuming that Government agencies have been negligent in failing to recognize or assert the claims of the Government at an earlier date, the great interests of the Government in this ocean area are not to be forfeited as a result. The Government, which holds its interests here as elsewhere in trust for all the people, is not to be deprived of those interests by the ordinary court rules designed particularly for private disputes over individually owned pieces of property; and officers who have no authority at all to dispose of Government property cannot by their conduct cause the Government to lose its valuable rights by their acquiescence, laches, or failure to act.2 We have not overlooked California's argument, buttressed by earnest briefs on behalf of other states, that improvements have been made along and near the shores at great expense to public and private agencies. And we note the Government's suggestion that the aggregate value of all these improvements are small in comparison with the tremendous value of the entire three-mile belt here in controversy. But, however this may be, we are faced with the issue as to whether state or nation has paramount rights in and power over this ocean belt, and that great national question is not dependent upon what expenses may have been incurred upon mistaken assumptions. Furthermore, we cannot know how many of these improvements are within and how many without the boundary of the marginal sea which can later be accurately defined. But beyond all this we cannot and do not assume that Congress, which has constitutional control over Government property, will execute its powers in such way as to bring about injustices to states, their subdivisions, or persons acting pursuant to their permission. See United States v. Texas, 162 U. S. 1, 89, 90; Lee Wilson & Co. v. United States, 245 U. S. 24, 32.

21 Bull. No. 321, Dept. of Interior, Geological Survey.

22 United States v. San Francisco, 310 U. S. 16, 31-32; Utah v. United States, 284 U. S. 534, 545, 546; Lee Wilson & Co. v. United States, 245 U. S. 24, 32; Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U. S. 389, 409. See also Sec'y of State for India v. Chelikani Rama Rao, L. R. 43 Indian App. 192, 204 (1916).

We hold that the United States is entitled to the relief prayed for. The parties, or either of them, may, before September 15, 1947, submit the form of decree to carry this opinion into effect, failing which the Court will prepare and enter an appropriate decree at the next term of Court.

It is so ordered.

Mr. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. 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 the Union "on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever." 9 State. 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 river, 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.

Mr. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, dissenting.

By this original bill the United States prayed for a decree enjoining all persons, including those asserting a claim derived from the State of California, from trespassing upon the disputed area. An injunction against trespassers normally presupposes property rights. The Court, however, grants the prayer but does not do so by finding that the United States has proprietary interests in the area. To be sure, it denies such proprietary rights in California. But even if we assume an absence of ownership or possessory interest on the part of California, that does not establish a proprietary interest in the United States. It is significant that the Court does not adopt the Government's elaborate

argument, based on dubious and tenuous writings of publicists, see Schwarzenberger, Inductive Approach to International Law, 60 Harv. L. Rev. 539, 559, that this part of the open sea belongs, in a proprietary sense, to the United States. See American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347, 351. Instead, the Court finds trespass against the United States on the basis of what it calls the "national dominion" by the United States over this area.

To speak of "dominion" carries precisely those overtones in the law which relate to property and not to political authority. Dominion from the Roman concept dominium, was concerned with property and ownership, as against imperium, which related to political sovereignty. One may choose to say, for example, that the United States has "national dominion" over navigable streams. But the power to regulate commerce over these streams, and its continued exercise, do not change the imperium of the United States into dominium over the land below the waters. Of course the United States has "paramount rights" in the sea belt of California-the rights that are implied by the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, the power of condemnation, the treatymaking power, the war power. We have not now before us the validity of the exercise of any of these paramount rights. Rights of ownership are here asserted—and rights of ownership are something else. Ownership implies acquisition in the various ways in which land is acquired-by conquest, by discovery and claim, by session, by prescription, by purchase, by condemnation. When and how did the United States acquire this land?

The fact that these oil deposits in the open sea may be vital to the national security, and important elements in the conduct of our foreign affairs, is no more relevant than is the existence of uranium deposits, wherever they may be, in determining questions of trespass to the land of which they form a part. This is not a stipulation where an exercise of national power is actively and presently interfered with. In such a case, the inherent power of a federal court of equity may be invoked to prevent or remove the obstruction. In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564; Sanitary District v. United States, 266 U. S. 405. Neither the bill, nor the opinion sustaining it, suggests that there is interference by California or the alleged trespassers with any authority which the Government presently seeks to exercise. It is beside the point to say that "if wars come, they must be fought by the nation." Nor is it relevant that "The very oil about which the state and nation here contend might well become the subject of international dispute and settlement." It is common knowledge that uranium has become "the subject of international dispute" with a view to settlement. Compare Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416.

To declare that the Government has "national dominion" is merely a way of saying that vis-à-vis all other nations the Government is the sovereign. If that is what the Court's decree means, it needs no pronouncement by this Court to confer or declare such sovereignty. If it means more than that, it implies that the Government has some proprietary interest. That has not been remotely established except by sliding from absence of ownership by California to ownership by the United States.

Let us assume, for the present, that ownership by California cannot be proven. On a fair analysis of all the evidence bearing on ownership, then, this area is, I believe, to be deemed unclaimed land, and the determination to claim it on the part of the United States is a political decision not for this Court. The Constitution places vast authority for the conduct of foreign relations in the independent hands of the President. See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 299 U. S. 304. It is noteworthy that the Court does not treat the President's proclamation in regard to the disputed area as an assertion of ownership. See Exec. Proc. 2667 (Sept. 28, 1945), 10 F. R. 12303. If California is found to have no title, and this area is regarded as unclaimed land, I have no doubt that the President and the Congress between them could make it part of the national domain and thereby bring it under Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution, The disposition of the area, the rights to be created in it, the rights heretofore claimed in it through usage that might be respected though it fall short of prescription, all raise appropriate questions of policy, questions of accommodation, for the determination of which Congress and not this Court is the appropriate agency.

Today this Court has decided that a new application even in the old field of torts should not be made by adjudication, where Congress has refrained from acting. United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301. Considerations of

judicial self-restraint would seem to me far more compelling where there are obviously at stake claims that involve so many far-reaching, complicated, historic interests, the proper adjustments of which are not readily resolved by the materials and methods to which this Court is confined.

This is a summary statement of views which it would serve no purpose to elaborate. I think that the bill should be dismissed without prejudice.

OCTOBER TERM, 1947

October 27, 1947

ORDER AND DECREE (332 U. S. 804)

No. 12, Original. United States v. California. Decided June 23, 1947 (332 U. S. 19)

Mr. Chief Justice VINSON announced the entry of the following order and decree:

Since our opinion which was announced in this case June 23, 1947, two stipulations have been filed in this Court, signed by the Attorney General and Secretary of the Interior of the United States on the one hand and by the Attorney General of the State of California on the other hand. In these stipulations the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior purport to renounce and disclaim for the United States Government paramount governmental power over certain particularly described submerged lands in the California coastal area. In such stipulations the United States Attorney General and Secretary of the Interior furthermore purport to bind the United States to agreements which purport to authorize state lessees of California coastal submerged lands to continue to occupy and exploit those lands, and which agreements also purport to authorize California under conditions set out to execute leases for other submerged coastal lands.

Robert E. Lee Jordan has filed a petition in this Court praying that he be permitted to file a motion as amicus curiae or in the alternative as an intervenor to have the foregoing stipulations and agreements set aside and declared null and void on the ground among others that the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior are without authority to bind the United States by agreements which it is alleged would if valid alienate and surrender the Government's paramount power over the submerged lands concerning which the stipulations are made.

It is ordered that the petition of Robert E. Lee Jordan to file the motion here to declare the stipulations null and void be denied, without prejudice to the assertion of any right he may have in a proper district court.

It is further ordered that the stipulations between the United States Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior on the one hand and the Attorney General of California on the other, which stipulations purport to bind the United States, be stricken as irrelevant to any issues now before us.

And for the purpose of carrying into effect the conclusions of this Court as stated in its opinion announced June 23, 1947, it is ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED as follows:

1. The United States of America is now, and has been at all times pertinent hereto, possessed of paramount rights in, and full dominion and power over, the lands, minerals, and other things underlying the Pacific Ocean lying seaward of the ordinary low-water mark on the coast of California, and outside of the inland waters, extending seaward three nautical miles and bounded on the north and south, respectively, by the northern and southern boundaries of the State of California. The State of California has no title thereto or property interest therein.

2. The United States is entitled to the injunctive relief prayed for in the complaint.

3. Jurisdiction is reserved by this Court to enter such further orders and to issue such writs as may from time to time be deemed advisable or necessary to give full force and effect to this decree.

Inasmuch as the stipulations of July 26, 1947, have been stricken, Mr. Justice Frankfurter desires explicitly to note his understanding that insofar as the meaning or scope or validity of the stipulations may give rise to any legal issue, no such issue has been before the Court or has here been considered,

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

UNITED STATES v. LOUISIANA

(339 U. S. 699)

NO. 12, ORIGINAL

Argued March 27, 1950.-Decided June 5, 1950

1. In this suit, brought in this Court by the United States against the State of Louisiana under Art. III, § 2, Cl. 2 of the Constitution, held: The United States is entitled to a decree adjudging and declaring the paramount rights of the United States as against Louisiana in the area claimed by Louisiana which lies under the Gulf of Mexico beyond the low-water mark on the coast of Louisiana and outside of the inland waters, enjoining Louisiana and all persons claiming under it from continuing to trespass upon the area in violation of the rights of the United States, and requiring Louisiana to account for the money derived by it from the area after June 23, 1947. United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19. Pp. 700–706.

(a) Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385; New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662; Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, distinguished. P. 704.

(b) The marginal sea is a national, not a state, concern, and national rights are paramount in that area. United States v. California, supra. P. 704.

(c) Prior to its admission to the Union, Louisiana had no stronger claim to ownership of the marginal sea than the original thirteen colonies or California; and Louisiana stands on no better footing than California, so far as the three-mile belt is concerned. P. 705.

(d) Since the three-mile belt off the shore is in the domain of the Nation rather than that of the separate States, it follows a fortiori that the area claimed by Louisiana extending 24 miles seaward beyond the three-mile belt is also in the domain of the Nation rather than that of Louisiana. Pp. 705-706.

2. In ruling on a motion for leave to file the complaint in this case, 337 U. S. 902, this Court held, in effect, that Art. III, § 2, Cl. 2 of the Constitution, granting this Court original jurisdiction in cases "in which a State shall be Party," includes cases brought by the United States against a State, notwithstanding a claim that the States have not consented to be sued by the Federal Government. Pp. 701–702. 3. In ruling on a demurrer and motions filed by the State of Louisiana, 338 U. S. 806, this Court held, in effect, that it had original jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter; that lessees of oil, gas and other similar rights in the disputed area are not indispensable parties to the case; and that Louisiana was not entitled to a more definite statement of the claim of the United States or to a bill of particulars. P. 702.

4. This being an equity suit for an injunction and accounting, Louisiana was not entitled to a jury trial. Even if the Seventh Amendment and 28 U. S. C. § 1872 extend to cases under the original jurisdiction of this Court, they require jury trials only in actions at law. P. 706.

The case and the earlier proceedings herein are stated in the opinion at pp. 700-703. The conclusion that the United States is entitled to the relief prayed for is reported at p. 706.

Solicitor General Perlman argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Attorney General McGrath, Assistant Attorney General Vanech, Arnold Raum, Oscar H. Davis, Robert E. Mulroney, Robert M. Vaughan, Frederick W. Smith and George S. Swarth.

L. H. Perez and Cullen R. Liskow argued the cause for the defendant. With them on the brief were Bolivar E. Kemp, Jr., Attorney General of Louisiana, John L. Madden, Assistant Attorney General, Stamps Farrar, Bailey Walsh and F. Trowbridge vom Baur.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States by its Attorney General and its Solicitor General brought this suit against the State of Louisiana, invoking our jurisdiction under Art. III, § 2, CI. 2 of the Constitution which provides "In all Cases . . . in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction."