Cite as: 540 U. S. 56 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
We reject Maryland's remaining arguments. Maryland, as well as Justice Stevens, post, at 81 (dissenting opinion), contends that the Award merely confirmed the private property rights enjoyed by Virginia citizens under Article Seventh of the 1785 Compact and the common law, which rights are in turn subject to Maryland's regulation as sovereign over the River. The arbitration proceedings, however, were convened to "ascertai[n] and fi[x] the boundary" between coequal sovereigns, 20 Stat. 481 (preamble), not to adjudicate the property rights of private citizens. Neither Maryland nor Justice Stevens provides any reason to believe the arbitrators were addressing private property rights when they awarded "Virginia" a right to use the River beyond the low-water mark. Their interpretation, moreover, renders Article Fourth duplicative of the 1785 Compact and the common law (which secured riparian owners' property rights) and the rest of the Black-Jenkins Award (which granted Maryland sovereignty to low-water mark).8 Only by read-to fix the boundary without the necessity of arbitration, Maryland's commissioners took the same position, which they described as follows: "The line along the Potomac River is described in our first proposition according to our construction of the compact of 1785, and as we are informed, is according to the general understanding of the citizens of both States residing upon or owning lands bordering on the shores of that river, and also in accordance with the actual claim and exercise of jurisdiction by the authorities of the two States hitherto." Id., at L-14 (Report and Journal of Proceedings of the Joint Commissioners to Adjust the Boundary Line of the States of Maryland and Virginia 27 (1874)). Although the arbitrators did not accept Maryland's proposal to preserve Virginia's sovereign right to build improvements by including them within Virginia's territory, they accomplished the same result in Article Fourth of the Award.
8 Similarly, Justice Kennedy does not adequately explain why Article Fourth—part of a document that grants unrestricted sovereign rights— would merely "affir[m] that Virginia, as much as its citizens, has riparian rights under the 1785 Compact," post, at 87 (dissenting opinion), when Virginia, as owner of the soil to low-water mark, already possessed such rights under the common law.
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