Sold – Buchanan Writes the US Senate: Just Months After the Washington Aqueduct Opens, He Sends a Key Judicial Opinion on the Matter

The Washington Aqueduct provides the public water supply system serving the Federal district. One of the first major aqueduct projects in the United States, it was commissioned by Congress in 1852, and construction began in 1853 under the supervision of Montgomery C. Meigs and the US Army Corps of Engineers (which still owns and operates the system). Portions of the Aqueduct went online on January 3, 1859.  The system has been in continuous use ever since.

Getting the aqueduct and the dam that made water collection possible built was a long and complex process that tested the reach and authority of the federal government as related to private individuals who owned property necessary for its construction.  This would require the seizure of privately held land, a process called eminent domain. The landmark eminent domain case in connection with this construction involved Great Falls Manufacturing Company, which owned Conn’s Island, the site of the dam of the aqueduct itself.  The Great Falls Company petitioned the court to award them hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution, a claim based on potential use of the property and future value to the government. An arbiter agreed.  

The Senate protested this, and Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Brewer agreed to take up the case.  In early 1859, The Journals of Congress report that the Senate instructed President Buchanan to send them Judge Brewer’s opinion as soon as it had been rendered.  Judge Brewer sided with the government and denied that the company was entitled to such restitution, the amount being excessive.  This broke new ground and was a victory for the government, which had less than 2 months earlier opened portions of the aqueduct and was already availing itself of the land in question.  Moreover, it was costing millions of dollars to construct.  Judge Brewer’s decision went to the Army Corp of Engineers, through the Secretary of War, who sent it along to Buchanan.

President James Buchanan immediately fulfilled his Constitutional obligation and sent this opinion to the Senate in this Letter Signed, Washington City, March 1, 1859. “I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War with accompanying paper in obedience to the Resolution of the Senate adopted 23rd February requesting the President of the United States ‘to communicate to the Senate a copy of the opinion of Judge Brewer in the Great Falls land condemnation case, involving a claim for damages to be paid by the United States.’  James Buchanan.”

Just 2 days later, Congress passed and the President signed a law setting in place regulations for the governance of the aqueduct and the distribution of water to the people of Washington.  For its part, the Great Falls Manufacturing Company continued to petition for compensation, which finally came in 1884 at what must have been a disappointing sum of less than $20,000.