Henry Billings Brown

“ The status of real estate within a particular jurisdiction is not so much one of contract as of policy, which may be changed at any time by the legislature, provided no vested rights are disturbed. Of course, if riparian proprietors have acquired the title to the property below high-water mark by a grant or prior possession, good against the state, they could only be dispossessed by proceedings in eminent domain. The act of 1867 declared no more than that the rights possessed by the state in the shore and soil under Mobile river were granted to the city. ”

“ No reference was made to the prior authorities respecting tide waters.
In Demopolis v. Webb, 87 Ala. 659, 6 So. 408, the case did not turn upon the ownership of land below high-water mark, although the court, in delivering the opinion, said: 'Under our decisions, when a person owns lands on a navigable river his ownership is held to extend so far as to embrace the land between high and low water marks,' citing Williams v. Glover, 66 Ala. 189, which, as before stated, related to land upon an island in the Tennessee river, and not upon a tidal stream. ”

“ Prior to this time, however, and in 1839, the supreme court of Alabama in the case of Mobile v. Eslava, 9 Port. (Ala.) 577, 33 Am. Dec. 325, had also held that the navigable waters within that state, having been dedicated to the use of the citizens of the United States, it was not competent for Congress to grant a right of property in the same, and that the navigable waters extended, not only to low water, but embraced all the soil within the limits of high-water mark. ”