Ohio v. Kentucky

Mr. Justice Powell,

with whom Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.

The Court today holds that the present boundary between Ohio and Kentucky is the low-water mark of the northern shore of the Ohio River when Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. This curious result frustrates the terms of the Virginia Cession of 1784 that first established the Ohio-Kentucky border, ignores Mr. Chief Justice Marshall’s construction of that grant in Handly’s Lessee v. Anthony, 5 Wheat. 374 (1820), is contrary to common-law rules of riparian boundaries, and creates a largely…