Tennessee v. Virginia

Background

This dispute was between the State of Tennessee and the State of Virginia over their common boundary as originally run in 1801–1803 and previously adjudged by this Court. The Court appointed three commissioners in 1900 to retrace, remark, and reestablish the line from White Top Mountain to Cumberland Gap. The commissioners filed a detailed report on January 5, 1903; neither State excepted to that report. Meanwhile the two States’ legislatures executed a 1901 compact ceding the northern half of Main Street in the twin cities of Bristol to Virginia, and Congress gave consent to that compact.

Reasoning

The central question was what the real, certain, and true boundary line is between the two States. The Court reviewed and confirmed the commissioners’ report, adopted their recommendations (including the straight line from the end of the old diamond-marked line to the North Carolina–Tennessee corner), and recognized the 1901 compact as modifying the line through Bristol. The Court thus declared and fixed the entire boundary from the North Carolina corner to Cumberland Gap as described in the commissioners’ report, with the Bristol segment altered by the 1901 agreement. The Court allowed the commissioners’ expenses as stated in the report and ordered costs and expenses to be equally divided between the States.

Real world impact

The decree establishes physical monuments and marked trees along the entire line, settles ownership and jurisdiction questions along Main Street in Bristol, and requires each State to share the survey costs. The commissioners also recommended that private land rights not be harmed where taxes were paid in the wrong State, and the Court ordered fifty printed copies of the decree be delivered to each State’s Attorney General.