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Navigable waters: a different course in the American South

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Abstract

When state legislatures in the American South defined navigable waters in the early nineteenth century, they followed prevailing notions that streams capable of carrying commerce were in fact navigable and also that such routes constituted public highways. State actions to define and maintain navigable waters led to environmental transformation and represent an early form of resource management. Unlike in New England, mills and other riparian activities made only modest inroads on the primacy of navigation in the American South—both in law and in court decisions. Early navigation improvements proved ephemeral during the antebellum period, but a second phase of federally financed waterway modifications that began in the late nineteenth century produced enduring environmental and legal impacts. Court decisions, where federal projects were involved, have reasserted the prominence of navigation interests. Ultimately, these decisions, along with other recent environmental statutes, have undermined the authority of states over their internal water resources.

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Notes

  1. Downey (1999, 2006) was concerned with the establishment of a capitalist economy and not water or environmental history.

  2. The act was passed in 1809 and amended in 1816 and 1829.

  3. Implicit in Horwitz and Steinberg is uniform application of the instrumental interpretation across the country. Rosen (2003) found considerable variation among industrial states.

  4. I reviewed the nineteenth century digest of case law under the heading navigable waters and noted all cases in southern states (Century Edition 1904). Consistently, the antebellum courts backed the notion of public highway for rivers designated as navigable waters as discussed below.

  5. A vigorous discussion has focused on the economic viability of Southern internal improvements. Limited capitalization and a low volume of paying traffic played a role in poor maintenance which permitted extreme weather events to cause lasting damage to the poorly engineered structures. See Larson (2001) and Majewski (1996).

  6. The classic work on the recovery and renovation of the Southern economy is Wright (1986) and a recent interpretation of Reconstruction is Fitzgerald (2007).

  7. The expansion of federally funded river improvements was not limited to the South, but it provided an extraordinary impact to the region and directly impacted many of the same waterways that local investors had attempted to alter during the antebellum period. Often a first step involved clearing obstructions placed in rivers during the Civil War followed by further channel modifications (U.S. Army 1880).

  8. Decisions by the Army Engineers could also leave a river poorly served if they terminated maintenance or declined a local petition (Hoffman 2000).

  9. The Corps terminated work on the Wateree River in 1889, and resumed navigation maintenance after a successful appeal by local citizens (U.S. Army 1910, p. 1452).

  10. In January 2010, Georgia won the right to have the case heard on appeal, and thereby extended the legal contest over Chattahoochee River water.

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  1. Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Craig E. Colten

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Colten, C.E. Navigable waters: a different course in the American South. Water Hist 2, 3–17 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-010-0015-2

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