Posted on 12/04/2014 12:37:49 PM PST by george76
Such as permitting logging, grazing, mining, gas drilling and economic development?
All of that helps Utah without requiring the land to actually change hands.
Exactly
Arguably the Federal government obligated itself to turn over that land in the Federal law known as the Utah Enabling Act.
One Indian War officer was asked about the territory he was going through (lava beds, IIRC) and he said it "Looked like Hell with the fire gone out." A pretty apt description of some areas in Eastern Oregon and Idaho.
Oh really? And what specifies what the government can own and what it can't?
So...Air Force bases are illegal? National parks are illegal? Interstate highways are illegal? Lighthouses are illegal? Air traffic control facilities are illegal?
There is another clause that deals with territories, but as we all know, territories are not states. Once a territory became a state, all limits upon the US gov concerning states must go into effect.
Complete nonsense. Article IV, Section 3 talks about the territory or other property of the United States. And Article I, Section 8 does not say those are the only property the federal government can own.
The article says that if Utah were to control the property owned by the federal government then they would realize over $300 million in mining royalties alone. Grazing rights would probably be worth tens of millions more. Why shouldn't they have to pay the Federal Government for that?
I quoted the enabling act in post 7. In it the people of Utah gave up any rights and title to the government owned by the federal government or Indian tribes.
“Since the Federal Government bought it from Mexico, why do you claim they have no right to it? “
And just who “owns” the Federal Government? Answer” The States. This whole issue of “federal land” is counter to the Constitution. What has happened is that Federal Land “Management” Agencies (and there are dozens) have become populated with envirowhackos who see it as their “duty” to “preserve” this land according to their own personal desires. Our first move should be to disband the Army Corps of Engineers. The US Army should be ashamed to have these cretins bearing any part of their good name.
So, just what exactly are “unappropriated public lands”?
By the way, the feds themselves are reneging on the terms of the Utah Enabling Act, by forcing the overturn of that state’s laws that guard against plural marriage.
Idaho, Arizona and Oklahoma came into the Union on the same terms.
Those lands not deeded to the state in Section 6, 7, and 8 of the Enabling Act. Link
How is the government overturning state laws against polygamy?
A federal court “overturned” Utah’s cohabitation law.
It seems as if, under those terms, the supposed boundaries of the State of Utah, and other states, especially in the west, are a total fiction.
Coal ping.
But did not strike down the laws that made polygamy illegal
Why?
The cohabitation law was one of the primary tools state government had to make sure the constitutional prohibition on polygamy was enforced.
It ain't much of a state when they only control a tiny portion of the land.
It's as much of a state as any other. Has the proper number of congressmen and senators. Legislature and state government. All the rest. The fact that the federal government owns a lot of property there doesn't change that.
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