William Howard Taft

“ Counsel for the plaintiffs in the present case insist that the United States has the constitutional authority to maintain exclusive jurisdiction over the tract here in question as a national park, and that as the government undoubtedly may use its control over all land within its exclusive jurisdiction to provide national parks, it may, where land is ceded by a state to the exclusive jurisdiction of the national government, treat land thus ceded by the state for such a purpose as it would treat national public land which had never come within the jurisdiction of the state ”

“ Justice Field, in elaborating the opinion, said that if the act of cession of exclusive jurisdiction adopted subsequently to the purchase of the land was followed by a failure of the United States to continue to use the land for any purpose for which it was purchased, the exclusive jurisdiction would lapse. ”

“ In an appropriation act Congress empowered the Secretary of War to sell and convey part of these to any purchaser, provided that they should not be sold at less price than they cost the government, and provided that prior to the sale of the lands exclusive jurisdiction should be ceded to the United States of all the remaining lands connected with the Navy Yard belonging to the United States. ”