| OCR Text |
Show -1+9- The state constitution could bind private persons within the state whose assent to the will of the majority was either actual or legally presumed; but there, was no one in Colorado to give consent for the United States« Consequently the right of the federal government to use the waters upon the public land of the United States remained unimpaired except as otherwise provided by Congress ,H"a The unconditional conveyance of such lands to private persons 3 however s is a relinquishment of federal jurisdiction or conbrol as well as a transfer of title; and the sovereign power of the state then immediately attaches* Some years elapsed after these unusual provisions appeared in the consti- tution of Colorado before any other state inclined to a like sovereign policy was admitted into the Union. In the meantime, however, the internal and foreign policy of the United States opposing exclusive use of waters not flowing altogether within the ter- ritorial limits of any one -state or country, or affording access from the sea, found expression in another and far distant quarter. When it appeared that other nations or their agents were likely to take possession of the great basin of the Congo and its tributary rivers in Africa, with the possibility of a .re- currence of the same controversy that had arisen over the navigation of the Amazon in South America, trade organizations of the United States supplicated Congress y and the Senate considered resolutions calling upon the President "to protect the interests of the United States .in the commerce of the Congo *119 rates to be charged for the use of water, whether furnished by individuals or corporations•" 1 Thorpe's Constitutions, 474 Et seq* xo Consult the historical decision of 200 pages by the California Supreme Court in Lux v* Haggin, 69 Calo 255, 10 Pac* 67I4. (1886) (consult also j+ Pac« 919 (1881+); New Orelans v* United States, 10 Pet. (U.S.) 662, 9 L.. Ed. 573 (1836)5 Brewer-Elliott Oil & Gas Co. v. United States 260 U. S. 77, l& Sup. Ct. 60, 67 L# Ed« llj.0 (1922), aff'g 270 Fed. 100 (CCA. 8th Cir« 1920), aff'g 2l+9 Fed* 609 (DoC. 0kla« 1918). Consult, also, the authorities cited in footncrte #ll6«, supra, 118aSGe footnote $+9, supra, p. 153, The constitution of Colorado also ignored the effect of unlimited diversion upon the navigable waters of the United States 0 1 Thorpe !s Constitutions, I4.7I+ et seq« The enabling act withheld rather than gave congressional consent for the state to appropriate waters on the public lands, or appurtenant thereto. A,ct of Mar. 3^ I875, c. 139, 18 Stat. at L. klh; and this policy was followed by Congress in subsequently providing for admission of other states in the arid west* •^•^see response of President Chester A. Arthur to a resolution of the House of Representatives calling for a complete report on the participation of tb.e United States in the Conference of Berlin. House Exec. Doc, I4.8 Congress9 Second Session, Vol. 29, ifeLtf (1885), See also resolution introduced in the Senate by United States Senator John T. Morgan, of the Committee on Foreign Relations, on Feb. 26, 1881+, asking the President to protect American interests ".««2«. By re-asserting and applying the policy of previous Administrations, denying rights of sovereignty and of intervention by any power, great or small, to the mouth of the Congo., the |
