Thompson letter: Public lands

In Steve Spencer’s March 9 letter on public lands he neglected to mention the “Disclaimer Clause” that was inserted in each of the 11 Western states’ constitutions that gave the government the right to claim our unappropriated and unreserved public lands; that Presidents Hoover, Coolidge and Andrew Jackson all requested the U.S. Congress to return the land back to the states so they could honor their birthright on equal footing; that in 1932 the U.S. Congress held hearings on “Granting Remaining Unreserved Public Lands to States”; and that in 1835 Andrew Jackson announced that the national debt was paid.

So then Thomas Maddock, Dept. of the Interior, announced: “The public debt now being paid, the public lands are entirely released from the pledge they were under to that object and are free to receive a new and liberal destination for the relief of the States they lie.” The 1891 Section 24 gave the president the right to take from any state any land at any time to place it into a Forest Reserve; 1976 FLPMA declared that the Congress was not going to return our lands but put them under government ownership.

This story was originally published April 3, 2017 at 1:57 PM with the headline "Thompson letter: Public lands."