Cite as: 540 U. S. 56 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
sovereignty over "the property of the Virginia shores or strands bordering on either of the said rivers, and all improvements which have been or shall be made thereon." Va. Const., Art. XXI, reprinted in 9 W. Hening's Statutes at Large 118. It would be anomalous to conclude that Maryland's sovereign authority to regulate the construction of such improvements was so well established a mere nine years later that the 1785 Compact's drafters did not even need to mention it.
Accordingly, we read the 1785 Compact in light of the ongoing dispute over sovereignty. Article Seventh simply guaranteed that the citizens of each State would retain the right to build wharves and improvements regardless of which State ultimately was determined to be sovereign over the River. That would not be decided until the Black-Jenkins Award of 1877.
The Black-Jenkins arbitrators held that Maryland was sovereign over the River to the low-water mark on the Virginia shore. See Act of Mar. 3, 1879, ch. 196, 20 Stat. 481-482. "[I]n further explanation of this award, the arbitrators deem[ed] it proper to add" four articles, id., at 482, the last of which provides:
" 'Virginia is entitled not only to full dominion over the soil to low-water mark on the south shore of the Potomac, but has a right to such use of the river beyond the line of low-water mark as may be necessary to the full enjoyment of her riparian ownership, without impeding the navigation or otherwise interfering with the proper use of it by Maryland, agreeably to the compact of seventeen hundred and eighty-five.' " Ibid.
Unlike the 1785 Compact's Article Seventh, which concerned the rights of citizens, the plain language of Article Fourth of the Award gives Virginia, as a sovereign State, the right to use the River beyond the low-water mark. Nothing in Article Fourth suggests that Virginia's rights are subject to
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