Treaty of Beaufort
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The Treaty of Beaufort, also called the Beaufort Convention, is the treaty that officially set the all-river boundary between the U.S. states of Georgia and South Carolina. It was named for Beaufort, South Carolina, where it was signed in 1787.
It set the boundary generally to be the thalweg (centerline) of the Savannah River, extending north into the Tugalo River, and up to the headwater of its primary tributary. (At that time, the area had not been fully surveyed, thus the somewhat ambiguous wording.) If that headwater point was south of Georgia's border with North Carolina (latitude 35°N), then South Carolina would claim everything north of a due-west line from that point, and south of 35°N, as far west as the Mississippi River. This claim was shown on some maps of the time.
As it later turned out, the primary tributary of the Tugalo (now Tugaloo) is the Chattooga River, which does originate in North Carolina. The other issue was the islands in the rivers, which the treaty assigned to Georgia in the two rivers (Savannah and Tugalo) known to be the border at the time. In these cases, the thalweg is drawn through the center of the more northerly (actually northeasterly) channel, curving gradually around the island.
There have been two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding this treaty. The first Georgia v. South Carolina case in 1922 was regarding the islands in the Chattooga, which was not explicitly named in the treaty because that was prior to its discovery. The second case of the same name was in 1989 was more complex, regarding a Georgia island that had become a South Carolina peninsula due to dredging.
The legal status of this treaty, given that the later U.S. Constitution of 1789 made interstate treaties unconstitutional, is now that of an interstate compact. Just as such compacts must be ratified by the U.S. Congress, this treaty was ratified by the Continental Congress, and is still considered to be legally binding.
