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Show "These dispositions are recognized by the signatory powers as forming henceforth a part of public international law." The United States Senate failed to ratify the Berlin Act;*** and the march of events in the Congo soon made it a dead letter. But as the United States had been the first nation officially to recognize the International Association of the Congo, 122+ it was equally prompt in negotiating a treaty with the succeeding sovereign expressly conceding to the United States all the benefits of the Berlin Act,^5 And so in the end American policy on the Congo registered con- sistently with the previous acts and claims of Thomas Jefferson, John Quinoy Adams and Franklin Pierce, in respect to the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence and the Amazon in this hemisphere* At about the tine the attention of Congress was first attracted to the im- portance of navigation on the far distant waters of the Congo Basin, the adjustment of the rights and jurisdiction of Maryland and Virginia in the very near waters of Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River met with the approval of the national law-makers. This approval was expressed by congressional assent to a compact between those states supplementing the century-old treaty of 17^5 and making more certain the interstate boundary line through the middle thread of these waters-but with the jurisdiction pf Virginia extending only to lent water mark on the south shore of the Potomac, This was followed by a compact between Vermont and New York involving a cession of territory from the one state to the other so as to fix the boundary line rtin the middle of the deepest channel of Poultney River." Then New York and Connecticut by compact establish- ed their boundary line, rights of fishery and jurisdiction in and on the waters of Long Island Sound. By similar compact the boundary line "in the waters of the sea between Connecticut and Rhode Island" was adjusted by those states• Shortly afterward New York and Pennsylvania entered into a compact fixing their common boundary in the middle of the Delaware River "as it winds and turns#" providing for concurrent jurisdiction of the two states on the waters of that river, and recognizing the'northwestern boundary of Pennsylvania and "its pro- longation due north into the waters of Lake Erie until it intersects the Miscellaneous Documents #68, Vol. 2, L#th Congress, 1st Session (1886); and the first signature on that Document is that of John A. Kasson, United States Minister to Berlin, followed by H» S« Sanford, his associate, and then by Bismarck and others* Chap# IV, Act of Navigation of the Congo, being Art. 13 of the General Act, provides that "The-navigation of the Congo, without ex- ception of any of the branches or issues of this river, is and shall remain entirely free for merchant vessels, loaded or in ballast, of all nations, as well for the transport of merchandise as for that of travelers. • • In tlie exercise of this navigation, the subjects and the flags of all the nations shall be treated, in «.ll respects, upon the footing of a perfect equality, as well for the direct navigation from the open sea toward the interior parts of the Congo, and vice versa, as for the great and small coastwise navigation and also for the small-boat transportation throughout the extent of this river • • lf (italics added.) 12'2 ' ^2 The New Larned History for Ready Reference, 986. The principal ab- jections raised in Congress were (a) to departure from the traditional American- policy of nonpartioipation in old-world agreements, and (b) to endorsing a-6 |