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Show -22- waters in which more than one State legitimately may be interested."^ Apparently the first problem to engage the attention of the States in their more perfect Union was the disposition of their territorial possessions and appurtenant water rights* Virginia, probably realizing that the makeshift cession by the States of their territories west of the Appalachian Mountains to the "United States in Congress Assembled" under the Articles of Confeder- ation was void for lack of power in the grantee to take, promptly made a new cession to the constitutional United States of the territory "northwest of the river Ohio," with all rights nof soil as well as jurisdiction," to be governed by the revised Ordinance of I787, here for the first time officially called a "compact between the original States and the people and States in the territory northwest of the Ohio river." This act of the State of Virginia was fraught with unforeseen conseauences of great importance. From the start the new federal government, called the United States, was destined to grow into the greatest landed proprietor within the Union; and the Ohio River was to become one of the few great boundary water courses not divided at the thalweg of the stream according to the general rule of international law on this continent.m-8 Virginia retained the whole of the mighty river to low water mark on the north shore; and in the thinly populated stretches of the great northwest territory beyond, the federal government became the absolute owner of more lands and riparian rights than all the inhabitants combined. The proprietorship of the United States immediately took unto itself a sovereign immunity from any act of the territorial governments, or of the new States later to be created, which might in any way diminish the value, control or use of these lands and riparian appurtenances, whether by taxation, water diversion, or in any other fashion. This immunity of the national government rests not upon any monarch- ial theory of privileged ownership, but upon the constitutional grant by the In Maine, domestic consumption is the highest use of water, and, apparent- ly, is a preferential use. Auburn v. Union Water Power Co., 90 Me. 57^* 3^ Atl. 56I, 38 L.R.A. 188 (1897). ^7 Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U.S. 223, 21 Sup. Ct. 73, U5 L. Ed. 162 (1900). The Delaware River was owned by the British-monarch prior to the American Revolution, but New Jersey and Pennsylvania then acquired the river by concmest, and, under the rules of international law, each State took to the middle of the stream. Att'y Genfl v. Delaware & Bound Brook Ry., 27 N.J. Eq. 1 (I876), aff»d, 27 N. J. Bq. 63I (1876); Rundle v. Delaware & Raritan Canal Co., II4. How. (U.S.) 80, 1I4. L. Ed. 335 (I852), aff'g 1 Wall, Jr. 275, Fed. Cas #12139 (CC, Pa. 181+9). For many years the international boundary between the United States and Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas, respectively, was along the banks (not the middle of the stream) of the rivers Sabine, R©&> and Arkansas. Act of May 26, I82I4., 1, U Stat. at L. i+Oj Treaty of Friendship, Limits and Navigation between the United States and Spain, Oct. 27, 1795, 8 Stat. at L- 138* 2 MalloyTs Treaties, I6I4O; Treaty between the United States and the French. Republic, Apr, 30, I8O3, 8 Stat. at L. 202, 1 Malloy»s Treaties, 5O8; Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits, between the United States and Spain, Feb. £2, 1819, Art. 3, 8 Stat. at L. 252, 2 Malloy»s Treaties, I65I; Treaty of Limits, between the United. States and the Mexican States, Jan. 12, 1828, 8 Stat. at L. 372, 1 Malloy's Treaties, 1082; Convention between the United |