Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Finally, there is no merit in New York's position that depriving it of sovereign authority over the filled land would frustrate the primary purpose of the Compact. The State argues that the Compact's framers must have thought it necessary to recognize New York's sovereign authority over the islands on New Jersey's side of the boundary line in order to assure that New York would be able to regulate commerce and navigation in the New York Harbor. But neither intuition nor history supports its argument. Although it is taken for granted that one object of the Compact was to preserve New York's authority to regulate water-borne commerce in the harbor, a subject addressed in Article Third, the more evident reason that the Compact declared New York's sovereignty over the islands was simply that by 1834 New York had concededly obtained sovereign rights over the islands through prescriptive acts. New Jersey conceded as much when it filed its bill of complaint in New Jersey v. New York. While Article Third does speak to commerce and navigation, New York's "exclusive jurisdiction" over the water and submerged lands lying between the two States is unaffected in any literal sense by the presence of the fill, and there is no reason to think that recognizing New Jersey as sovereign over the filled portions of the Island would affect New York's ability to regulate navigation and commerce in the harbor.
B
On the assumption that Article Second or some other Compact provision fails to carry the day for New York, the State
Co. v. American Timber Co., 92 N. J. Eq. 219, 219-220, 113 A. 489, 490 (1920).
New York's amicus curiae the City of New York suggests that under United States v. California, 381 U. S. 139, 176 (1965), a State may unilater-ally alter its boundary line by artificially extending its coastline. Brief for City of New York as Amicus Curiae 25. That case, however, involved the interpretation of the Submerged Lands Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 (1958 ed.), which is not involved in the instant case.
785
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