''Florida v. Georgia'', 58 U.S. (17 How.) 478 (1854), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point ...

case invoking the Court's original jurisdiction to determine boundary disputes between states. In this case the boundary dispute was between the State of Florida and the

State of Georgia Georgia is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee and North Carolina; to the northeast by South Carolina; to the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean; to the south by Florida; and to the we ...

Background

Florida claimed that the state line was a straight line (called McNeil's line, for the man who surveyed it for the

U.S. government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

in 1825) from the confluence of Georgia's Chattahoochee and

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the ...

s (forming the Apalachicola River, at a point now under Lake Seminole), then very slightly south of due east to the source of the St. Mary's River, which was the point specified in Pinckney's Treaty in 1795. That eastern point of the straight line was near Ellicott mound, which was erected in 1799 at "about 30° 34' N." The McNeil line was looked upon for more than 20 years as the proper location of the boundary. Georgia claimed that the headwaters of the St. Mary's River were at the source of the southern branch, some 30 miles or nearly 50 kilometers south, at Lake Spalding or Lake Randolph. If upheld, Georgia would have obtained additional territory estimated at 800 to 2,355 square miles. The position of the U.S. commissioners was that the actual source of the St. Mary's was two miles north of the Ellicott mound. Other Supreme Court cases involving Georgia boundary disputes include: '' State of Alabama v. State of Georgia'', 64 U.S. 505 (1860), and two '' Georgia v. South Carolina'' cases in 1922 and 1990.

Opinion of the Court

Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the Court, ruling in favor of Florida and setting the state boundary line along "McNeil's line." This outcome was followed in 1859 by the surveying of the

Orr and Whitner line Orr or ORR may also refer to: Acronyms * Office of Rail and Road, a regulatory body in the United Kingdom * Office of Refugee Resettlement, a program of the US Administration for Children and Families * Oxygen reduction reaction, a type of chem ...

. On April 9, 1872, Congress approved the Orr and Whitner Line as part of the border between Georgia and Florida.

Dissent

Justice Curtis, joined by Justices McLean, Daniel and Campbell, delivered the dissenting opinion, asserting that the United States was effectively made a party through the Attorney General, and such intervention by the United States government was an impermissible intervention in matters of the individual states.

References

External links

* * 1854 in United States case law United States Constitution Article One case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court original jurisdiction cases Internal territorial disputes of the United States Legal history of Florida Legal history of Georgia (U.S. state) 1854 in Florida 1854 in Georgia (U.S. state) United States Supreme Court cases of the Taney Court {{SCOTUS-stub

Background

Opinion of the Court

Dissent

See also

References

External links