White also discussed the District of Columbia's lengthy history regarding the regulation of wharves and docks.Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 348-357. 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.Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 357. White interpreted Potomac Steam-Boat Co. as superimposing an easement on top of existing riparian water rights.Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 358. It was not, as the majority held, the government's purpose all along to bound the plots of land with Water Street.
