Numerous compacts as to boundaries have been entered into by the States with the express consent of Congress. The State of New York has, for instance, entered into the following agreements: with New Jersey, respecting territorial limits and jurisdiction, consented to by Congress in an act approved June 28, 1834;15 with Connecticut, respecting boundaries, consented to by Congress in an act approved February 26, 1881;16 with Massachusetts, by which New York acquired from that State a small tract of land known as "Boston Corner," consented to by Congress in an act approved January 3, 1855;" with Vermont, by which New York acquired a small tract of land, consented to by Congress in an act approved April 7, 1880;18 and with Pennsylvania, respecting the boundary line, consented to by Congress in an act approved August 19, 1890.19 In 1874, Virginia and Maryland referred their controversies as to territorial limits and boundary to arbitration. The consent of Congress to the award of the arbitrators was given in an act approved March 3, 1879.20

A compact, signed June 3, 1897, by the governors of Nebraska and South Dakota in virtue of acts of the legislatures of the respective States, concerning the boundary line between these States in the Missouri River, was by express provision made subject to the consent of Congress. Such consent was given in an act approved July 24, 1897.21 Congress, by a joint resolution approved March 3, 1901, gave its consent to a compact between Virginia and Tennessee, embodied in concurrent laws passed by the legislatures of these States in 1901, in which Tennessee ceded, 15 4 Stats. at L. 708.

16 21 Id. 351. 17 10 Id. 602.

18 21 Id. 72.

19 26 Id. 329. For other boundary agreements, see Gannett, Boundaries of the United States. See also the following cases: Sims v. Irvine, 3 Dall. 425; Marlatt v. Silk, 11 Pet. 1; Robinson v. Campbell, and Burton v. Williams, 3 Wheat, 212, 218, 529, 533; Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 16, 89, 90, 92; Hawkins v. Barney, 5 Pet. 457, 464, 465; Massachusetts v. Rhode Island, 12 Pet. 657, 725; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling, &c., Bridge Co., 13 How. 518, 561, 562. By an act approved October 3, 1914, Congress consented to the boundary line between Connecticut and Massachusetts as determined in accordance with an act of the legislature of Connecticut approved June 6, 1913, and of the legislature of Massachusetts approved March 19, 1908. 38 Stats. at L. 727.

20 20 Stats. at L. 481.

21 30 Id. 214.

and Virginia accepted, a small strip of land.22 Other recent instances are found in the acts of Congress approved March 1, 1905, consenting to a compact between South Dakota and Nebraska as to the boundary in the Missouri,28 and January 24, 1907, consenting to a compact between New Jersey and Delaware as to territorial limits and jurisdiction.24 Congress by joint resolutions approved June 7, June 10, and June 22, 1910, authorized the conclusion of compacts, respectively, by Missouri and Kansas, as to boundary and jurisdiction in the Missouri, by Oregon and Washington, as to boundaries in the Columbia, and by Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, or any two or more of them, as to their respective jurisdictions over offenses against their laws on waters of Lake Michigan.25

Mr. Justice Field, in writing the opinion of the court in Virginia v. Tennessee, suggested as possible instances of arrangements between States, not in his opinion prohibited by the terms "agreement" and "compact" in the Constitution, a concerted plan for draining a common malarial or disease-producing district, or for preventing a sudden invasion of a plague or other causes of sickness, or a contract between Massachusetts and New York for the transportation over the Erie Canal of exhibits for the World's Fair at Chicago. He added: "The mere selection of parties to run and designate the boundary line between two States, or to designate what line should be run, of itself imports no agreement to accept the line run by them, and such action of itself does not come within the prohibition. Nor does a legislative declaration, following such line, that it is correct, and shall thereafter be deemed the true and established line, import by itself a contract or agreement with the adjoining State. It is a legislative declaration which the State and individuals, affected by the recognized boundary line, may invoke against the State as an admission, but not as a compact or agreement. The legislative declaration will take the form of an agreement or compact when it recites some consideration for it from the other party affected by it, for example, as made upon a similar declaration of the border or contracting State. The mutual declarations may then be reasonably

22 31 Id. 1465. See Tennessee v. Virginia, 190 U. S. 64, 66.

23 33 Stats. at L. 820.

24 34 Id. 858.

25 36 Id. 881, 882.

treated as made upon mutual considerations. The compact or agreement will then be within the prohibition of the Constitution, or without it, according as the establishment of the boundary line may lead or not to the increase of the political power or influence of the States affected, and thus encroach or not upon the full and free exercise of Federal authority. If the boundary established is so run as to cut off an important and valuable portion of a State, the political power of the State enlarged would be affected by the settlement of the boundary; and to an agreement for the running of such a boundary, or rather for its adoption afterwards, the consent of Congress may well be required. But the running of a boundary may have no effect upon the political influence of either State; it may simply serve to mark and define that which actually existed before, but was undefined and unmarked. In that case the agreement for the running of the line, or its actual survey, would in no respect displace the relation of either of the States to the general government. There was, therefore, no compact or agreement between the States in this case which required, for its validity, the consent of Congress, within the meaning of the Constitution, until they had passed upon the report of the commissioners, ratified their action, and mutually declared the boundary established by them to be the true and real boundary between the States. Such ratification was mutually made by each State in consideration of the ratification of the other."26

26 148 U. S. 503, 518, 520. See for instances of the appointment by two States of joint commissioners to run and mark boundary lines, Gannett, Boundaries of the United States (3d ed.), 42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 53, 65, 68, 72, 80, 81, 87, 103, 107, 116.

II. THE EXECUTION OR ENFORCEMENT.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."—Article VI of the Constitution.