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Show -107- alliances, or confederations, the prohibition is absolute. The distinction which the framers of the Constitution intended to draw between agreements unconditionally prohibited and those permitted with the consent of Congress is not apparent from the language of the Constitution itself. Nor is aid to be derived from literature contemporary with the Constitutional Convention. There was little or no discussion of these two clauses while the Constitution was in making, and the question has never been judicially determined M Story maintained that the terms treaty, alliance, and confederation applied to treaties of a political character, such as "treaties of alliance for purposes of peace and war; and treaties' of confederation, in which the parties are leagued for mutual government, political co-operation, and the exercise of political sovereignty; and treaties of cession of sovereignty, or conferring internal political jurisdiction., or external political dependence, or general commercial privileges," The terms "agreement" and "compact" referred, in his opinion, to "private rights of sovereignty; such as questions of boundary; interests in land situate in the territory of each other; and other internal regulations for the mutual comfort and convenience of states bordering on each other."5 Vattel seems to have been of a substantially similar opinion concerning the general connotation of these terms," although he did not consider them in connection with the American Constitution It is with ''agreement or compact" that we are chiefly concerned, There seems to be no constitutional objection to an agreement be- tween two or more states concerning administrative problems with which they are confronted, provided congressional consent is obtained. Indeed many such agreements have been concluded,' the most recent being a compact be- tween New York and New Jersey for the purpose of developing their port facilities «." Some state courts have held that there are classes of agree- ments or compacts into which two or more states could enter without the con- sent of .Congress 9 it is difficult to reconcile the reasoning in those cases with the explicit language of the Constitution itself The states are for- bidden to "enter into any agreement or compact" 42 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (5th ed. 1891) sec. 1402- • ^2 Story, op* cite sec0 lIiO3«> 6 Vattel, The Law of Nations (1792) secs0 152, 153., I5I4* 206e 7 Bruce, The Compacts and Agreements of States With One Another and With Foreign Powers (1918) 2 Minn* L. Rev* 5OO5 515O 8 Public Resolution-No, 17-~67th Congress (S, Jo Resu-88) approved August 23, 19210 $ Fisher v« Steele (I887) 39 La* Ann, ti\7s 1 Soe 882; Union Branch Ry, v* Tennessee & Georgie Ry0 (1853) II4 Oa0 327j Dover v, Portsmouth Bridge Co. (I8J45) 17 N. H. 200, In these cases, the courts emphasized the fact that the agreements under consideration were non-political in character. See also Virginia v. Tennessee (1893) II18 U.'S. 503, 13 Sup. Cto 728j Notes (1922) 35 Harv. L, Rev* 322. (636) |