[Democrat_media]

1. government owning land is socialism/communism
2. the U.S. federal government own this much land (most of the West and up to 86% of the land in Nevada alone) is monstrous .and repeal of that ownership should be a top issue. but the media hides this
3. Texas does seem to have the most private land. this is why it's the most prosperous and free of the states:

[Paladin2]

That map looks better.

[Cen-Tejas]

......and what they do own in Texas they bought!

[Milton Miteybad]

Texas does seem to have the most private land. This is why it's the most prosperous and free of the states.

Exactly right. Sometimes people ask "What makes Texas so different from all the other states?" The answer is fairly simple: When Texas was admitted to the Union, it retained sovereignty over all of its unpatented public lands within its borders; in contrast, the other western states ceded sovereignty over their public lands to the federal government, usually for the purpose of dumping the cost of law enforcement in the sparsely populated public range onto the feds, who were only too happy to take the western states up on the deal.

Most of the lands in Texas have been severed from the sovereign, i.e., patented into private hands. Those that were not, totaling some 2.1 million acres, were placed into the Permanent University Fund, the bulk of which are situated in the massive mineralogical storehouse known as the Permian Basin. Lease bonuses, oil and gas royalties and surface lease reveneues from production activities on the University Lands, which are shared by The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A & M University, place these two institutions squarely among the wealthiest public institutions of higher learning on the planet.

The Henderson ranch, which is at the center of the Red River controversy, was duly patented and the Henderson family holds the same pursuant to a regular chain of title from said patent (actually, a series of patents) to the present day. These are clearly private fee lands, severed from the sovereign, which could have been one of the following entities, depending on when each particular survey was patented:

1. Spain

2. Republic of Mexico

3. Republic of Texas

4. State of Texas

Please note that the cited sovereign entities which could have patented any or all of this 90,000 acres now owned by the Henderson group DOES NOT include the United States, which has literally had to purchase just about every acre in Texas it now owns.

Contrast the Henderson situation with that of the Bundy family, who, with the exception of 150 acres of private fee lands they own, are running their cattle on public lands which have never been patented, i.e., severed from the sovereign, and which for all purposes is still owned by the U.S. government. The Bundys may have some prescriptive claim on at least some portion of these lands, but at last report they had yet to persuade a judge or jury as to that assertion.

At any rate, next time somebody asks, "What the hell makes Texas so different?" you'll have the answer ready for them.