ARTICLE V.

RHODE ISLAND AND MASSACHUSETTS BOUNDARY.

The controversy between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, pending in the supreme court of the United States, assumes a character of so much novelty and importance in its principles and effect, that an account of the proceedings must be interesting not only to professional but general readers. It is, in all its parts, a case of the first impression. Two States of this Union are litigating, before the highest Judicial tribunal of the nation, for territorial jurisdiction and the rights of sovereignty. The Court has affirmed its own constitutional right to take cognizance of the case; has disposed of all preliminary questions, which the great interests involved, and the original character of the proceedings induced, the defendant state to present; and now proposes to consider the rights of the litigant parties on a general answer, which it has ordered to be put on file by the first day of August next. Of these matters, then, we shall speak in their order, but it will first be convenient to give our readers an accurate idea of the subject in dispute.

It is to be understood, then, that the object of Rhode Island is to remove her present line of actual boundary running from the North-west corner of that State to the North-east corner thereof, directly North about five miles. The distance from East to West is about twenty-one miles and a half. The proposed new line is not exactly parallel with the old one. The area, however, comprises about seventy-five or eighty square miles. It is occupied by about six or seven thousand inhabitants, and contains, by estimation, a million of dollars of taxable property. It includes part of the townships of Douglass, Uxbridge and Mendon, in Worcester County; and Bellingham and Wrentham in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. As no such transfer of jurisdiction from one State to another, ever occurred in the United States, it is difficult to say what would be the civil and political effect of it, on the inhabitants and their property, if this suit of Rhode Island should be successfully prosecuted. The disputed territory, that is now part of Massachusetts, would then be Rhode Island. The laws of Massachusetts, which now operate there, would thenceforth cease; and the laws of Rhode Island would be in force. Whether they would have a retrospective operation, and whether corporations, established by Massachusetts' law, would continue in legal existence, and whether the past or future liabilities of the stockholders would remain as they now are, are questions not easily to be determined.

It is to be observed, however, that the present demand of Rhode Island, though now only made to the political jurisdiction and sovereignty, may, on the same principle, extend to the entire right in feesimple to the soil; and that this right, if once the jurisdiction is settled in her favor, would depend for its practical operation on her own legislation and her State courts. The original grantees of the soil took under the title of Massachusetts; and the present possessors claim in direct succession from these original grantees. But the jurisdiction now claimed for Rhode Island belonged to her, only because the soil was granted to her in her charter; and if it be so, the grants of soil by Massachusetts are as invalid as her claim to jurisdiction. If against the claim of a sovereign State, time is no bar to jurisdiction, neither is it to territory. To what extent the rights of Rhode Island would be pushed cannot be foreseen; but unquestionably there are deep interests at stake, as has been admitted by the supreme court of the United States; greater probably than they are aware of, who live on this disputed territory.

The bill of Rhode Island was filed in the year 1832, and a citation was served on the governor and attorney general of Massachusetts, commanding them to appear at the January term of the supreme court of the United States in 1833, to answer to the complaint. Governor Lincoln, then in the executive chair of Massachusetts, by virtue of a resolve of the Legislature, passed in March preceding, authorizing him to take suitable measures for defending the rights of the State, appointed the Hon. Daniel Webster to appear as her counsel.

The bill is drawn with great labor, research, and professional skill. The third edition, now before us, printed by order of the supreme court, covers sixty-four closely printed octavo pages. It sets forth the grant of King James I., to the Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England in America of "all that part of America lying in breadth from 40 deg. northerly latitude to 48 deg. north, and in length of and within all the breadth aforesaid throughout the main lands from sea to sea," bearing date Nov. 3, 1621. Then, the grant of the said Council to Sir Henry Roswell and others on March 19, 1628, of all that part of New England in America, which lies and extends between a great river there commonly called Monomac or Merrimac, and a certain other river there called Charles River, being in the bottom of a certain bay there, commonly called Massachusetts Bay, and "also all and singular those lands and hereditaments whatsoever, lying within the space of three English miles on the South part of the said Charles River, or of any and every part thereof, &c."

The bill then sets forth the Charter of Massachusetts, granted by Charles I., dated March 4, 1629, using the same words of boundary on the South, as are above recited. Then, the surrender of their patent by the Council of Plymouth on June 7, 1635. Next, the settlement of the wilderness adjacent to the Massachusetts line by people from England and from Massachusetts. Then, the grant of a charter from Charles II., on July 8, 1663, to Wm. Brenton and others, to be a body corporate and politic by the name of the Governor and Company of the King's Colony of Rhode Island and Providence plantations in New England, with the usual political privileges, and bounding the said Rhode Island Colony "on the North or Northerly by the aforesaid South or Southerly line of the Massachusetts colony or plantation," &c., with an averment that this charter was accepted by the freemen of said Rhode Island Colony, who soon after organized and made laws in pursuance thereof.

The bill then avers, that in 1684, the first charter of Massachusetts was declared to be cancelled, vacated, and annihilated by the High Court of Chancery, and that in 1691 another charter was granted by William & Mary, which "did erect, incorporate and unite the territories or colonies commonly called or known by the names of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay and Colony of New Plymouth, the Province of Maine, the territory called Acadia or Nova Scotia, and all that tract of land lying between the said territories of Nova Scotia and said Province of Maine into one Province by the name of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," and granted certain powers of government, therein specially referred to. The bill then avers the declaration of the independence of said colonies on July 4, 1776, and comes to the conclusion, which is thus formally alleged, "That by virtue of the said letters patent or charter to the said Governor and Company of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence plantations in New England in America, and their successors, the dividing boundary line between Massachusetts on the North and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations on the South, became and was a line drawn East and West three English miles south of the River called Charles River, or any or every part thereof."

These averments in the bill state very clearly the title of the two States, so far as they depend on the British charters. Massachusetts claims title by other sources, but admits that the charter boundary is truly stated, and maintains that her present boundary conforms to it. The question is thus fairly presented, where on the earth's surface this line east and west, three English miles south of the River called Charles River or any and every part thereof, is to be drawn?

To give our readers better means of understanding the matter, we leave, for a moment, the further details of the plaintiff's bill, to state some historical facts, not disputed, we believe, by either party.

In the year 1642, which, it will be perceived, was thirteen years after the colonial charter of Massachusetts, and twenty-one years before the colonial charter of Rhode Island, certain persons, claiming to be skilful and approved artists, undertook to trace out and mark this line, make a map of the country and delineate the line on the map; and the map so made is now in the archives of Massachusetts, and has lately been lithographed by the order of Rhode Island. These persons erected a stake or monument in the town of Wrentham, in the latitude of 41 deg. 55 min., and drew a line, or directed it to be drawn, westerly therefrom, and protracting it beyond the coterminous boundary of Rhode Island; extended it by Connecticut, until it should pass Connecticut River at Bissell's house. It has been since supposed that a straight line could not be so drawn, and so far as Connecticut is concerned, this supposition may be admitted; but as relates to Rhode Island, it is not only possible but true; and the line actually protracted from this station, marked upon the map and drawn upon the earth's surface, is the line of actual boundary which then began to be considered, and ever since has been claimed and used by Massachusetts as her boundary, in conformity with her charter; and is the line which Rhode Island now endeavors to remove about five miles further north.

The map which accompanies this article shows the position of Woodward and Saffrey's line. It also shows the line which Rhode Island claims to be the true line of the charter, and the space between these two lines, which is the disputed territory now in litigation. It is proper to observe, that this map is copied from the official map made ex parte by the colony of Rhode Island in 1750, and is sufficiently correct for the purposes of explanation, but the delineation of the head waters of Charles River is supposed by the agents of Massachusetts, to be improperly represented by narrowing the representation of the stream. A very different picture is made of these waters in the map of the State now in progress of being made, under the official trigonometrical survey, a transcript of which was made by her present chief surveyor, and exhibited before the supreme court. A copy of this map, we regret not being able to present to our readers, because it would appear by it that there is another part of the river proper from which a line may be drawn that more nearly coincides with the actual boundary, than the one now elaimed by Rhode Island; and diminishes the disputable space to about a third part of the area represented in this map.

PART OF CONNECTICUT.

DOUGLASS.

Munchaug Pond.

of the Colony of Rhode Island, as it was run by the Commissioners, in 1750.

W

E

This is the line as it was run in consequence of the agreement between the Colony and Province, dated Oct. 22, 1718.