70
Opinion of the Court
Maryland's regulation. Indeed, Virginia's riparian rights are limited only by Maryland's right of "proper use" and the proviso that Virginia not "imped[e] . . . navigation," limitations that hardly would have been necessary if Maryland retained the authority to regulate Virginia's actions. Maryland argues, however, that the Black-Jenkins Award simply confirmed her well-settled ownership of the Potomac, and thus the rights granted to Virginia in Article Fourth are subject to Maryland's regulatory authority.
We have already rejected Maryland's contention that the extent of her sovereignty over the Potomac was well settled before the 1785 Compact. Similarly, we fail to see why Maryland and Virginia would have submitted to binding arbitration "for the purpose of ascertaining and fixing the boundary" between them if that boundary was already well settled. Id., at 481 (preamble). Indeed, the opinion issued by the arbitrators dispels any doubt that sovereignty was in dispute, and confirms that Virginia's Article Fourth rights are sovereign rights not subject to Maryland's regulation.
At the beginning of their opinion, the arbitrators explained that their task was to "ascertain what boundaries were assigned to Maryland" by her 1632 charter. Black-Jenkins Opinion (1877), App. to Report, p. D-2. The arbitrators then outlined the extent of the existing dispute over the boundary:
"The State of Virginia, through her Commissioners and other public authorities, adhered for many years to her claim for a boundary on the left bank of the Potomac. But the gentlemen who represent her before us expressed with great candor their own opinion that a true interpretation of the King's concession would divide the river between the States by a line running in the middle of it. This latter view they urged upon us with all proper earnestness, and it was opposed with equal zeal by the counsel for Maryland, who contended that the
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