to the federal government, and there could be no doubt that the federal government intended to give all riparian rights to those to whom it sold the land. The majority's argument led to a tautology in which no riparian rights existed. Justice White also examined the conveyance of the federal government's land to the new private landowners in depth as well. In his discussion, White interpreted the "incorrect" maps as indicating the riparian rights to which the new private landowners were entitled (rather than a problem of inaccurate mapping). White concluded several times that the federal government fully intended to convey riparian rights to the new landowners because the government and its agents repeatedly indicated in letters, memoranda, contracts of sale, and other documents and statements its expectation that the waterside landowners were to build and maintain docks, wharves, and quays and improve the riparian rights they enjoyed. To assume otherwise, White concluded, was nonsensical. Either the federal government intended to convey riparian rights, or the government deceptively contemplated building Water Street and cutting the new landowners off from their access. "...the first hypothesis is the one naturally to be assumed." "The contracts for the sale of water lots with riparian rights attached, the reports of the surveyors, and the action of the commissioners, all blend into a harmonious and perfect whole, working from an original conception to a successful consummation of a well-understood result. The contrary view produces discord and disarrangement..." White also discussed the District of Columbia's lengthy history regarding the regulation of wharves and docks. In his view, the city's treatment of the wharves demonstrated that the wharves were private property on private riverbed land, not private property licensed to be emplaced on a riverbed held in the public trust. White interpreted Potomac Steam-Boat Co. as superimposing an easement on top of existing riparian water rights. It was not, as the majority held, the government's purpose all along to bound the plots of land with Water Street. Justice White would have overturned the judgment of the lesser court for determination of the riparian rights of the landowners in question. Assessment In Morris v. United States, the Supreme Court dealt with what was known as a "top common," a tract of land between a river and the land intended to be occupied and sold to private landowners. Such practices were common in colonial America. Morris v. United States