Nevada ranching family claims victory as government releases cattle (excellent reporting)

Here's some interesting info:

" When the Bundys and their friends went to collect the cattle and confronted the armed BLM thugs, Ammon says, the Clark County deputies did a great job of defusing the situation. The demand was given that BLM had a half hour to get out of the way, or the people were coming through. Within thirty minutes, vehicles began exiting the compound where the cattle roundup had been happening. Within an hour, all the BLM had run -- run, mind you -- to their vehicles and "unassed the AO" in a convoy that eventually amounted to over 100 vehicles. As has been reported, the crowd saluted them as they passed.

Left behind were trailers, generators, personal equipment scattered all over the ground and internal BLM documents left on the table where they had been branding the cattle. It was a great skedaddle, Ammon says. The BLM had to hire contractors to come back and clean up the mess.

I congratulated Ammon and told him that this was perhaps a pivotal moment in American history. He also agreed with me that it is impossible not to see the hand of God in all of this. I told him that it was my opinion that the empire would surely strike back, but that they would likely come at the Bundys and their supporters sideways next time. Still, it was a great victory, a pivotal moment, in the relationship between the federal government and the American people. Nothing will be quite the same after this, mostly because it has demonstrated to those whom the government would victimize that they only require someone with the guts to stand up to leviathan -- and the armed friends to back them up in the argument."

The federal government never ceded ownership of 80+% of the land in Nevada to the state. It retained ownership in violation of this article. The land belonged and still belongs to the state of Nevada. The local law enforcemnt authority is the SHERIFF. The BLM has no authority nor does the federal government since they didn’t comply when Nevada got staehood in 1860’s. The federal government never purchased the land from the state with the consent of the state legislature. That is the essence of it.
The clause, known as the Enclave Clause, authorizes Congress to purchase, own and control land in a state under specific and limited conditions, namely “for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings,” and not, as the feds now insist, to protect an endangered tortoise.

The Founders were opposed to providing a centralized federal government with unlimited authority to purchase and, as is routinely the case today, seize state and private land.

During the federal convention debates in September, 1787, Elbridge Gerry, who later went on to serve as vice president under James Madison, contended federal purchase of land “might be made use of to enslave any particular State by buying up its territory, and that the strongholds proposed would be a means of awing the State into an undue obedience.”

In order to make certain the federal government did not abuse the Enclave Clause, the words “Consent of the Legislature of the State” were added.

Madison, Jefferson and the Founders were primarily interested in limited government and the diffusion of federal authority over the states for the protection of individual liberty. In 1992, the Supreme Court issued an opinion on the framers’ reasoning behind the state consent requirement (New York v. U.S):

“The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States.

To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: rather,federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power.” (Emphasis added.)

Madison knew unlimited federal power inevitably results in unbridled tyranny. “I venture to declare it as my opinion that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America,” he wrote.

Despite the desire of the founders and the originating principles of the nation, conceived as a constitutional republic, the federal government has repeatedly and habitually exacted dictatorial authority in Nevada and throughout much of the West.

“The United States government owns and has broad authority to regulate federal lands in Nevada,” the BLM arrogantly insists. “In response to challenges of federal ownership of the lands in Nevada, the 9th circuit held that the federal government owned all federal lands in Nevada, and that those lands did not pass to the state upon statehood.”

This is in direct conflict with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution.

This is in direct conflict with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution.

I understand your position.

The land belonged and still belongs to the state of Nevada.

But this land has never belonged to the state of Nevada. It was ceded to the federal government by the Mexican government.

Under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance, the Northwest Territory, a previous cession to the federal government, it was established that the territory was to do with as Congress chose. In that particular case, Congress chose to reserve the territory for the formation of separate states -- denying any claim to the territory by any of the original 13 colonies.

Notably, the land involved was not necessarily ceded to the eventual states. All land sales and grants within the territory were conducted by the federal government, thru the Land Office in what became Marietta, OH. The eventual states did not participate in these sales.

Note also that the Northwest Ordinance was enacted in 1787, well within the founder's purview -- prior to the drafting of the Constitution even.

In the case of Nevada and the other pelf from the Mexican War, the Congress chose not cede all of its property to the states...or to sell it. Instead, they chose to retain significant chunks of it.

For no good reason, I would agree. Yet, their action is not without precedent.

Personally, I would be in favor of a forced sale or cession to the states. But that's not the situation we're dealing with right now.

There are also better argument than the quasi-legal one. Because the BLM and their colleagues are demonstrably mis-managing the land they are responsible for. And federal ownership places a huge burden on the local taxing authorities.

Finally, the affair is another good reason for an Article V convention.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.