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Show -98- oourts have labored to find implied somewhere the consent of Congress to a neglected pact* The Supreme Court has pondered over whether consent means approval of the terms of an agreement or merely permission to mako " one* It leans to the view that acquiescence by Congress may be implied and is all that is required^ and that such acquiescence need not be ob- tained in advance of the exact terms of the agreementc It will be noted that "alliances" or "treaties" are absolutely forbidden to states., but '"compacts" or "agreements" may be made with consents An. "alliance" is clearly a political combination., but is a "treaty" so flavored? And what is the distinction between a "treaty" and a "compact," the former being altogether wholly forbidden and the latter only partially inhibited? "Compact'1 and "agreement" are synonymous., except that the former implies more formality^ the court has said» Why did the Constitution use both terms if the latter at least was sufficient? Is every accommodation be- tween states, or every business arrangement a prohibited agreement? The court says not. The Constitution., it says, was leveling its commandments only at territorial or political engagements* which displace the balance cf the Union. It can be argued that a river compact can be made without congressional permission* as it affects no armies or elections.. Could states avoid the inhibition against voluntary agreements without consent of Congress by permitting a consent or default judgment in a suit between states? Like many constitutional phrases which were the whitecaps of anxieties which have long ago subsided, the clauses suggest all sorts of problems, most idle- Compacts do not seem to have been numerous in American state history. A few boundary agreements are recorded* There are one or two covering fishing and the navigation of rivers* There are arrangements for juris- diction over offenses on the large boundary rivers* which grant the right to punish to the first state to apprehend the criminal or establish con- current overlapping jurisdiction. The Supreme Court> in the diffident mood with which it has approached interstate litigation so often.> has sometimes urged the states to make boundary or river agreements, instead of embarrassing it. But compacts have been rares On the whole, Colorado seems -to have done more "compacting" in the last two years than most other states in a century. Our last legislature approved two irrigation agreements, one govern- ing the waters of the Colorado River, the other those of the La Plata River* Two others have since been negotiated by Honorable Delph Carpenter, our minister to all foreign powers, but they still await approval* one on the South Platte and one for the Rio Grande. The Colorado River Pact was exhaustively discussed last year and the year before at this Associa- tion* It is like the other compacts in that its wisdom raises a mixed question of politics9 engineering and statesmanship. It has been ratified by six of the seven states concerned^ but is still ineffective because of disapproval by Arizona. The future of it is uncertain* It seems to the writer ambiguous and of much more importance to the lower states than to ColoradOs but last winter ratification seemed the best choice* The La Plata Pact involves a small stream flow of an importance of only local dimensions. |