The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 53, July 1949 - April, 1950 Page: 7
538 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Concerning the Texas-Louisiana Sabine Boundary
Overton presented this decision to Hunt as final, and the latter
reluctantly accepted it.19
From a hydrographic viewpoint, for Texas to question the loca-
tion of the "mouth" of the Sabine was certainly not out of order.
One of the many troublesome features of river boundaries is the
fact that the mouth of a river is never a precise point.
The mouth is an area not a point. Also, it may be questioned
whether the mouth lies at the head of the estuary or bay or at the
entrance into the estuary or bay from the seas.20
For boundary purposes the mouth of a river is any place which
can be legally established as the meaning of the term within the
document creating a given boundary line. Texas was at a dis-
advantage in her efforts to place the mouth of the Sabine north
of Sabine Lake, since the Convention of 1838, which Texas rati-
fied, referred not simply to the mouth of the Sabine, but "the
mouth of the Sabine, where that river enters the Gulph of
Mexico."
After it had been determined that the Sabine, not the Neches,
was the boundary river, and that the mouth of the Sabine was
on the Gulf of Mexico, the joint commission proceeded to survey
and mark the boundary to the extent agreed upon in the 1838
convention.21
Some questions might be raised at this point. Did the line as
surveyed and marked in 1840-1841-along the western bank of
the Sabine from the Gulf to the thirty-second parallel, thence
due north to the Red River-coincide with the western boundary
of Louisiana as far north as the thirty-third parallel (the north-
ern limits of Louisiana); did it coincide with the Louisiana
boundary only from the thirty-second to the thirty-third parallel;
or was it purely an international line which ran near, but en-
tirely separated from the western boundary of Louisiana?
It may be assumed that Congress, in 1812, intended that the
western boundary of Louisiana would coincide with the western
l9Ibid., 229-235.
2zStephen B. Jones, Boundary-Making, a Handbook for Statesmen, Treaty Editors
and Boundary Commissioners (Washington, D. C., 1945), 130o.
21lThe journal of the joint commission, six maps, and copies of correspondence
relative to the demarcation are published in Senate Documents, 27th Cong., and
Sess. (397), No. 199.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 53, July 1949 - April, 1950, periodical, 1950; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101126/m1/25/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.