Shortly after the creation of the District of Columbia, the United States government sold certain plots of land to James M. Marshall; his brother, John Marshall (later Chief Justice of the United States); John L. Kidwell; the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company; and several others.

Justice Shiras first laid out the facts of the case in a lengthy syllabus, and established various classes of claimants.

[13] The first issue Justice Shiras confronted was whether any of the parties could lay claim to the bed of the Potomac River (and thus the reclaimed lands built by the government).

[15] Relying on the Supreme Court's previous decision in Martin v. Waddell, 41 U.S. 367 (1842), Justice Shiras argued that none of the Maryland landholders could claim title to the riverbed, either.

[17] Even if the riverbed had been assigned to Lord Fairfax and his heirs, Shiras concluded, the logic of Martin v. Waddell still held and delivered the lands into the control of the federal government.

[28] White also engaged in a lengthy discussion of the laying out of the city's boundaries, and the conveyance of private property to the federal government.

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.

"[33] "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..."[34] White also discussed the District of Columbia's lengthy history regarding the regulation of wharves and docks.

[36] White interpreted Potomac Steam-Boat Co. as superimposing an easement on top of existing riparian water rights.

Justice White would have overturned the judgment of the lesser court for determination of the riparian rights of the landowners in question.

[38] Morris v. United States is considered an important case in the evolution of the law of rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies of water, for it established that such bodies of water and their beds belonged to the public in common and were held in trust by the state for its citizens.