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Show -8- "• . . citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shall at all times hereafter have the same and equal Rights respecting the. navigation and fishery on and in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and the ¦ waters communicating from one to the other as shall from time to time be had and enjoyed by the citizens of the State of New York." Perhaps the last pre-constitutional compact was the Treaty of Beaufort,^5 made in 1787, between South Carolina and Georgia, in which it was stipulated that navigation on the Savannah River should be ". . • equally free to the citizens of both States, and exempt from all duties, tolls, hindrance, interruption, or molestation whatsoever, attempted to be enforced by one State on the citizens of the other•" No doubt other, but perhaps less comprehensive, understandings existed prior to the adoption of the constitution between the States having common boundary waters. But it is not probable that any of them extended freedom, of navigation beyond the riparian States, or relinquished the claim of right on the part of the riparian States to close such waters to all. navigation at their pleasure. The desirability of a more liberal attitude, however, found expression in the ordinance of 1787* enacted by the Federal Congress for the government of the territory northwest of the River Ohio which had just been transferred, in the exigencies of the war, to .the jurisdiction of that legislative body. In this ordinance it was expressly provided that "• • • the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other states that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost or duty therefor» lf^° • This treaty is discussed in South Carolina v. Georgia, 93 U. S. 4 23 L. Ed. 782 (1876), where the Court expressed the view that free navigation was the right of each of the riparian States before the constitution was adopted; but limited this view strictly to riparian States by sayings "Prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the States of South Carolina and Georgia together had complete dominion over the navigation of the Savannah River* By mutual agreement they might have regulated it as they pleased. It was in their power to prescribe, not merely on what -conditions commerce might be con- ducted upon the stream, but also how the river might be navigated, and whother it might be navigated at all'. . . They had plenary authority to make im- provements in the bed of the river, to divert the water from one channel to another, and to plant obstructions therein at will. This'v/ill not be deniedj but the po-wer to regulate commerce, conferred by the Constitution upon Congress, is that which previously existed in the States." (93 U.S. I4., 10, 23 L. Ed. 782, 763 (18.76).) (Italics added.) The' original ordinance of July 13, 1787* in full, appears in 1 Stat. at L. 52* It was revised and continued in force immediately after the adoption of the constitution by act of Congress (1 Stat. at L. 5^); was also extended tc the territory south of the river Ohio (1 Stat. at L. 123) later created into the State of Tennessee (1 Stat. at L. l\9l); was expressly retained as to |