The relators, petitioners here, filed their petition in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia for a writ of mandamus to compel the Secretary of War and the Chief of Engineers to authorize the construction of a wharf in the Potomac river within the District of Columbia adjacent to their land on the Virginia shore, the construction being forbidden by section 10 of the Act of March 3, 1899, c. 425, 30 Stat. 1121, 1151, 33 U.S.C. § 403 (33 USCA § 403), 'except on plans recommended by the Chief of Engineers and authorized by the Secretary of War.' The Judgment of the Supreme Court denying the writ was affirmed by the District Court of Appeals. 61 App.D.C. 360, 63 F.(2d) 137. This Court granted certiorari. 288 U.S. 598, 53 S.Ct. 507, 77 L.Ed. --.
Petitioners claim title through a grant to their predecessors in interest of a plot of upland lying in the state of Virginia, which extended at the time of the grant to the Potomac river. The upland has been enlarged by the recession of the river toward the north, and it is the contention of the petitioners that the enlargement is due to accretion, with the result that their ownership has been extended beyond the shore line of the river, as it existed at the time of the grant, to the present high-water line, a claim which is put in issue by the answer. But it is conceded that the bed of the river below high-water mark, where the proposed wharf is to be built, lies within the District of Columbia, and that title to it and sovereignty over it were vested in the United States by cession from the state of Maryland of the area constituting the present District of Columbia. See Maryland Laws, 2 Kilty, Sess. of November 1791, c. 45; Smoot Sand & Gravel Corp. v. Washington Airport, 283 U.S. 348, 51 S.Ct. 474, 75 L.Ed. 1109; Maryland v. West Virginia, 217 U.S. 577, 30 S.Ct. 630, 54 L.Ed. 888; Marine Railway & Coal Co. v. United States, 257 U.S. 47, 64, 42 S.Ct. 32, 66 L.Ed. 124; Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 225, 19 S.Ct. 649, 43 L.Ed. 946; Revised Statutes relating to the District of Columbia (1875), § 1. Within this area Congress has the plenary power to control navigation which was vested in the United States before the cession and which it exercises generally over navigable waters within the several states. It also acquired by the cession proprietary powers over the lands lying under water, and under article 1, § 8, cl. 17, of the Constitution, granting exclusive legislative power over the District, the sovereign power to regulate and control their use for public purposes other than navigation.
Petitioners have entered into a contract for the sale of their lands, conditioned upon securing permission to build the wharf, which is to be built and used by the purchaser in connection with a plant to be established on the upland for the storage of gasoline. It is stipulated on the record that the proposed wharf, which is to be constructed in conformity to plans approved by the Chief of Engineers, will not interfere with navigation. Petitioners assert a right as riparian owners to build and maintain it upon two grounds, first, that by the common-law rule as developed in the United States, the ownership of land bordering on a navigable river carries with it the right to build and maintain below high-water mark a wharf or other structure, not an obstruction to navigation (see Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331; United States v. River Rouge Imp. Co., 269 U.S. 411, 418, 46 S.Ct. 144, 70 L.Ed. 339; Norfolk City v. Cooke, 27 Grat. (68 Va.) 430; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Chase, 43 Md. 23) and, second, that by Paragraph 'Seventh' of the Compact of 1785 between Maryland and Virginia, ratified by Virginia March 28, 1785, 12 Hening, Virginia Stat. 50, and by Kilty, Session of November 1785, c. 1, it was Kilty, Session of November 1785, c. 1, it was provided:
'The citizens of each state respectively shall have full property in the shores of Patowmack River adjoining their lands, with all emoluments and advantages thereunto belonging, and the privilege of making and carrying out wharfs and other improvements, so as not to obstruct or injure the navigation of the river. * * *'