UNITED STATES v. LYNAH., 23 S. Ct. 349, 188 U.S. 445 (U.S. 02/23/1903)

[1]	SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
[2]	No. 45.
[3]	23 S. Ct. 349, 188 U.S. 445, 47 L. Ed. 539, 1903.SCT.40093 <http://www.versuslaw.com>
[4]	decided: February 23, 1903.
[5]	UNITED STATES v. LYNAH.
[6]	ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
[7]	Mr. Robert A. Howard for the plaintiff in error with whom Mr. Solicitor General Richards was on the brief.
[8]	As the original grantors of the defendants in error obtained grants the boundaries whereof were "on the Savannah River" the grants only extend to high water mark. United States v. Pacheco, 2 Wall. 587; State v. Pinckney, 22 S.C. 484, 507; Martin v. Waddell, 16 Peters, 367; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1; Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 226.
[9]	An individual may be the owner of a portion of the shore by a grant from the State but he takes the ownership subject to the trust for the people which cannot be destroyed or diminished. Hall, Sea Shore, 15; Hale de jure Maris Hay, L.T. v. V.; 5 Co. 107; Illinois Cent. R.R. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 435, 452; Stockton v. Balt. & N.Y.R. Co., 32 Fed. Rep. 19; 3 Kent, 377; Commonwealth v. Roxbury, 9 Gray, 451; State v. Pacific Guano Co., 22 S.C. 48, 83; Attorney General v. Parnenter, 10 Price, 378.
[10]	The government has not taken possession of these lands by the erection of structures thereon or physical entering upon them, but whatever was done was under the direction of Congress to accomplish the purpose of improving the navigability of the Savannah River which is complete. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 196; Hoboken v. Railroad Co., 124 U.S. 659; Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U.S. 691; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 724; South Carolina v. Georgia, 93 U.S. 4; Telegraph Co. v. Telephone Co., 96 U.S. 1.
[11]	The power in the United States includes "all the powers which existed in the States before the adoption of the Constitution." Whatever consequences follow in its exercise are to be provided for exactly as they had been or would be in the British Isles or in the States of the Union.
[12]	One of the primary objects, as has been so often stated, was to regulate commerce, and, in doing so, to reach out and absolutely control navigation and all the navigable waters of the country for the benefit of the people. When this court said, in Martin v. Waddell, that the sovereign people of each State hold the absolute right to all their navigable waters, and the soils under them, for their own common use subject only to the rights since surrendered by the Constitution to the general government, and that the grants made by their authority must be determined by different principles from those which apply to grants of the British Crown, it was not meant, simply, that the people, through their representatives, could arbitrarily dispose of the trust property. That is not the theory of representative government. That would not be tolerated long in a fierce democracy.
[13]	The court below found, it being a question of law and fact, that there had been such a taking of the land as entitled the parties to compensation. Reliance for this conclusion was had upon the principles laid down by this court in the cases of Monongahela N. Co. v. United States, 148 U.S. 336-337; Gibson v. United States, 166 U.S. 269, and explicitly Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 181; but these cases do not sustain the contention of the plaintiffs, the defendants in error, and can be distinguished from the cases at bar.
[14]	But what private property was taken for which compensation should be made under this guarantee of the Constitution, which is only affirmative of a right to the individual in a free government like this? The Crown had property rights in these lands in trust. The State had property rights to these lands in trust. They were never surrendered. They could not be. And when the United States reached out her hand and took possession of them to execute the trust to which she had succeeded, and which she was legally bound to execute, the inferior right had to yield, even to extermination. It is not for the courts to say that the individual has suffered and therefore should be reimbursed or compensated. If he has been, under a mistaken idea of his rights, put to labor and expense and hope, he has a remedy by application to the bounty of a government which will, it is opined, do him justice. But no wrong has been done him. He has enjoyed these lands and their profits without money and without pr