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Show -175- state, the question .arises whether it is such an agreement or compact as is pro- hibited by the constitution. "The compact or agreement," the court said, "will then be within the pro- hibition 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 out 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 arid unmarked« In that case the agreement for the running of the line,, or its actual survey, would in no respeot displace the relation of either of the states to the general government. There was, therefor, 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." The opinion contains also the following remarkable dictum which" has leavened the whole mass of constitutional oonstructioni "There are many matters upon which different states may agree that can in no respeot concern the United States. If, for instance, Virginia should come into possession and ownership of a small parcel of land in New York which the latter state might desire to acquire as a site for a publio building, i"t would hardly be deemed essential for the latter state to obtain the consent of Congress before it could make a valid agreement with Virginia for the purchase of the land. If Massachusetts, in forwarding its exhibits to the World's Pair at Chicago, should desire to transport them a part of the distance over the Erie Canal, it would hardly be deemed essential for that state to obtain th.e consent of Congress before it could contract with New York for the transpor- tation of the exhibit through that state in that way. If the bordering lime of two states should cross some malarious and disease producing district, there could be no possible reason, on any conceivable publio grounds, to obtain the consent of Congress for the bordering states to agree to unite in draining the district, and thus remove the cause of disease. So in case of threatened i-n- vasion of cholera, plague, or other oauses of sickness and death, it would be the height of absurdity to hold that the threatened states could not unite in providing means to prevent and repel the invasion of the pestilence-without obtaining the consent of Congress, which might not be at the time in session. If, then, the terms 'compact' or 'agreement* in the constitution do not'apply to every possible oompact or agreement between one state and another, for the validity of which the consent of Congress must be obtained, to what compacts or agreements does the constitution apply?" ' ' |