The reference by Justice Catron to the terms and conditions in act of 1812, is to a provision in the act of February 20, 1811 (2 Stat. 641, 642), quite common in enabling acts, by which the new State disclaimed title to the public lands, and stipulated that such lands should remain subject to the sole disposition of the United States, and for their exemption from taxation, and that its navigable waters should forever remain open and free, etc. Such stipulations, as we shall see, being within the sphere of congressional power, can derive no force from the consent of the State. Like stipulations, as well as others in respect to the control by the United States of large Indian reservations and Indian population of the new State, are found in the Oklahoma enabling act. Whatever force such provisions have after the admission of the State may be attributed to the power of Congress over the subjects, derived from other provisions of the Constitution, rather than from any consent by or compact with the State.

So far as this court has found occasion to advert to the effect of enabling acts as affirmative legislation affecting the power of new States after admission, there is to be found no sanction for the contention that any State may be deprived of any of the power constitutionally possessed by other States, as States, by reason of the terms in which the acts admitting them to the Union have been framed.

The case of Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, is a most instructing and controlling case. It involved the title to the submerged lands between the shores of navigable waters within the State of Alabama. The plaintiff claimed under a patent from the United States, and the defendant under a grant from the State. The plaintiff relied upon two propositions which are relevant to the question here. One was that in the act under which Alabama was admitted to the Union there was a stipulation that the people of Alabama forever disclaimed all right or title to the waste or unappropriated lands lying

within the State, and that they should remain at the sole disposal of the United States, and a second, that all of the navigable waters within the State should forever remain public highways and free to the citizens of that State and of the United States, without any tax, duty or impost imposed by the State. These provisions were relied upon as a "compact" by which the United States became possessed of all such submerged lands between the shores of navigable rivers within the State.

The points decided were:

First, following Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 410, that prior to the adoption of the Constitution, the people of each of the original States "held the absolute right to all of their navigable waters and the soil under them for their common use, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the Constitution."

Second. That Alabama had succeeded to all the sovereignty and jurisdiction of all the territory within her limits, to the same extent that Georgia possessed it before she ceded that territory to the United States.

Third. That to Alabama belong the navigable waters, and soils under them.

The court held that the stipulation in the act under which Alabama was admitted to the Union, that the people of the proposed State "forever disclaim all rights and title to the waste or unappropriated lands lying within the said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States," cannot operate as a contract between the parties, but is binding as law. As to this the court said:

"Full power is given to Congress 'to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States.' This authorized the passage of all laws necessary to secure the rights of the United States to the public lands, and to provide for their sale, and to protect them from taxation.

"And all constitutional laws are binding on the people, in the new states and the old ones, whether they consent to be bound by them or not. Every constitutional act of Congress is passed by the will of the people of the United States, expressed through their representatives, on the subject-matter of the enactment; and when so passed it becomes the supreme law of the land, and operates by its own force on the subject-matter, in whatever State or Territory it may happen to be. The proposition, therefore, that such a law cannot operate upon the subjectmatter of its enactment, without the express consent of the people of the new State, where it may happen to be, contains its own refutation, and requires no farther examination. The propositions submitted to the people of the Alabama Territory, for their acceptance or rejection, by the act of Congress authorizing them to form a constitution and state government for themselves, so far as they related to the public lands within that Territory amounted to nothing more nor less than rules and regulations respecting the sales and disposition of public lands. The supposed compact relied on by the counsel for the plaintiffs, conferred no authority, therefore, on Congress to pass the act granting to the plaintiffs the land in controversy."

Fourth. As to the stipulation in the same admission act that all navigable waters within the State should forever remain open and free, the court, after deciding that to the original States belonged the absolute right to the navigable waters within the States and the soil under them for the public use, "subject only to the rights since surrendered by the Constitution," said:

"Alabama is, therefore, entitled to the sovereignty and jurisdiction over all the territory within her limits, subject to the common law, to the same extent that Georgia possessed it before she ceded it to the United States. To maintain any other doctrine, is to deny that Alabama has

221 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

been admitted into the union on an equal footing with the original States, the constitution, laws, and compact, to the contrary notwithstanding."

The plain deduction from this case is that when a new State is admitted into the Union, it is so admitted with all of the powers of sovereignty and jurisdiction which pertain to the original States, and that such powers may not be constitutionally diminished, impaired or shorn away by any conditions, compacts or stipulations embraced in the act under which the new State came into the Union, which would not be valid and effectual if the subject of congressional legislation after admission.

This deduction finds support in Permoli v. First Municipality, 3 How. 589, from which we have heretofore used an excerpt; and in Strader v. Graham, 10 How. 82; Withers v. Buckley et al., 20 How. 84, 93; Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678, 688; Van Brocklin v. Tennessee, 117 U. S. 151, 160; Huse v. Glover, 119 U. S. 543; Sands v. River Co., 123 U. S. 288, 296; Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U. S. 504; Bolln v. Nebraska, 176 U. S. 83, 87.

That the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the States involves the control of the navigable waters of the United States over which such commerce is conducted is undeniable; but it is equally well settled that the control of the State over its internal commerce involves the right to control and regulate navigable streams within the State until Congress acts on the subject. This has been the uniform holding of this court since Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713; Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678, 683.

Many of the cases cited above presented the question as to whether state regulation of its own navigable waters, valid as an exercise of its power as a State until Congress should regulate the subject, was invalid because that "plenary power" had been cut down, not by a regulation

of the general subject by Congress, but as a result of a supposed compact, condition or restriction accepted by the State as a condition upon which it was admitted into the Union.

It may well happen that Congress should embrace in an enactment introducing a new State into the Union legislation intended as a regulation of commerce among the States, or with Indian tribes situated within the limits of such new State, or regulations touching the sole care and disposition of the public lands or reservations therein, which might be upheld as legislation within the sphere of the plain power of Congress. But in every such case such legislation would derive its force not from any agreement or compact with the proposed new State, nor by reason of its acceptance of such enactment as a term of admission, but solely because the power of Congress extended to the subject, and, therefore, would not operate to restrict the State's legislative power in respect of any matter which was not plainly within the regulating power of Congress. Williamette Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1, 9. Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, supra.

No such question is presented here. The legislation in the Oklahoma enabling act relating to the location of the capital of the State, if construed as forbidding a removal by the State after its admission as a State, is referable to no power granted to Congress over the subject, and if it is to be upheld at all, it must be implied from the power to admit new States. If power to impose such a restriction upon the general and undelegated power of a State be conceded as implied from the power to admit a new State, where is the line to be drawn against restrictions imposed upon new States. The insistence finds no support in the decisions of this court. In Withers v. Buckley, 20 How. 84, 92, 93, where it was contended that certain legislation of the State of Mississippi interfering with the free navigation of one of the navigable streams of the State, con