Felix Frankfurter

“ To the contrary, in the case of Florida, authoritative legislative history makes it perfectly clear that the very question deliberately preserved by the Act of 1953 was whether congressional approval of the new Florida Constitution in the Reconstruction legislation of 1867 1868, by which Florida was restored to full participation in the Union, amounted to an approval of the three-league boundary which that constitution explicitly set forth. ”

“ Congress, in the Submerged Lands Act itself, did not determine the existence of a boundary for any State beyond three miles, either explicitly or by implied approval of a claim presented to it in the course of the legislative process. Nor of course did Congress vest this Court with determination of a claim based on 'equity' in the layman's loose sense of the term, for it could not. Congress may indulge in largess based on considerations of policy; Congress cannot ask this Court to exercise benevolence on its behalf. ”