Government land

“ In short, our vicious system of government, and especially the infamous land laws, are the machinery that has brought you to this pass, and, as the very Grand Masters say nothing at all about mending these, let them keep their "addresses of loyalty" to themselves. ”

“ Your lands first offer: their fertility and agreeableness will tempt them to pitch there; but to secure them, they must have a well-grounded hope that the lands they cultivate may become their own. To encourage this, you must open that territory to them, and let them have lands for pay. You must go further, you must open the land office in that country, because it will be impossible for the indigent persons to travel for an office-right. You can then establish a government among them, and derive advantages from them which are now totally lost. ”

“ Let it be remembered, however, that I have always qualified the Private Ownership of Land by acknowledging the supremacy of the State. The tribe, the community, the State, the Government holds supreme power over the life and liberty of citizens, and over the ownership of the soil. The State calls for me to give up my individual pursuits, my individual liberty, my individual preference, and to take my place as a soldier in the ranks of the army. ”

“ President, let us define as we go—let us analyze. What do the land committee mean by ‘refuse land?’ Do they mean worthless, inferior, rejected land, which nobody will buy at the present government price? Let us look at facts, and make them our guide. The government is constantly pressed by the new states to bring more and more lands into the market; to extinguish more Indian titles; to survey more. The new states themselves are probably urged to operate upon the general government by emigrants and settlers, who see still before them, in their progress west, other new lands which they desire. ”

“ The Government claims to own the land, very much as the American Government owns the public lands. But, of course, the greater part of this land comes into the ownership of the people, and is transferable as elsewhere in the world. ”

“ The dominant feature in the Act, in its application to pastoral as well as agricultural land, is the strict limitation of the area which may be held by any one person; rightly or wrongly, the Government are determined that the Crown Lands shall not pass into the hands of large holders. ”

“ Their political institutions were the logical outcome of their laws respecting landed property, which favored a great subdivision of the land and great equality among the people, thus promoting prosperous cultivation, compact communities, general education, a healthy public opinion, democracy in managing the affairs of the church, and that system of local self government which has since prevailed over so many States. ”

“ How may government turn to the best advantage a state of things which it cannot wholly interdict? It may be found practicable, by means of the sale of land in situations peculiarly advantageous, however distant from other locations, by establishing townships and ports, and facilitating the intercourse between remote and more settled districts of this vast territory, to provide centres of civilisation and government, and thus gradually extend the power of social order to the most distant parts of the wilderness. ”

“ The liberal land laws of the Government—giving a homestead to each man brave enough and enterprising enough to go out and occupy it, the mines it offered to the prospectors were the powerful factors that gave us population and led to the development of the country. ”

“ You are authorized, in concert with the agents of the different societies, and before civil authority, to make arrangements with heads of families, or other emigrants who can unite twelve people able to work, and also to stipulate that the government will give them a portion of land sufficient to employ twelve persons, and on which may be raised coffee, cotton, maize, peas and other vegetables and provisions ”

“ Land.—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens, should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only. ”

“ Every succeeding Government tried a new Land Bill, some dealing with selection, land orders to new arrivals being part of the system; but the tendency of all succeeding land legislation down to the present day has been to allow more liberal terms to the prospective selector. ”

“ The Government, I understand, have adopted a scheme by which they can secure land. If they have not ascertained from these men what land [Pg 220] they will want, and secured that land by the time the men are ready, that scheme will be of little use to them. ”

“ For me the only correct meaning of that phrase is that our Government must proceed according to the 'law of the land'-that is, according to written constitutional and statutory provisions as interpreted by court decisions. ”

“ The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. ”

“ Our national government today is not structured to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food. Indeed, the present governmental structure for dealing with environmental pollution often defies effective and concerted action.
Despite its complexity, for pollution control purposes the environment must be perceived as a single, interrelated system. ”

“ Now my theory and belief is, and always has been, that the public lands should be given to those who will cultivate and improve them—actual settlers who will make for themselves and their descendants a home—and not throw this munificent gift of the National domain into the hands of land-sharks and speculators. Every person taking a claim, and those now holding claims under any of the different acts of Congress, should occupy and cultivate such lands according to the spirit and intent of the laws granting them the same. ”

“ The land for the people, first of all. As clear as daylight was the right of the people to the land: let the State assume possession, and manage it—its mines and minerals, its agriculture, its public grounds and parks—for the benefit of all, not for the profit of a pampered few. ”

“ Giving up the plan of using these lands for ever as a fund either for revenue or distribution—ceasing to hug them as a great treasure—renouncing the idea of administering them with a view to regulate and control the industry and population of the states, or of keeping in subjection and dependence the states, or the people of any portion of the union, the task will be comparatively easy of striking out a plan for the final adjustment of the land question on just and equitable principles. ”

“ In any case where the Federal Land Manager demonstrates to the satisfaction of the State that the emissions from such facility will have an adverse impact on the air quality-related values (including visibility) of such lands, notwithstanding the fact that the change in air quality resulting from emissions from such facility will not cause or contribute to concentrations which exceed the maximum allowable increases for a class I area, a permit shall not be issued. ”

“ Either a tsunami or a storm tide that overflows the land is popularly called a tidal wave, although it bears no relation to the tide.
If a volcanic eruption occurs below the surface of the sea, the escaping gases cause a quantity of water to be pushed upward in the shape of a dome. The same effect is caused by the sudden rising of a portion of the bottom. As this water settles back, it creates a wave which travels at high speed across the surface of the ocean.
Tsunamis are a series of waves. Near the epicenter, the first wave may be the highest. ”

“ We propose to secure a tract of land in one of these countries, prepare it for settlement, establish in it authority, govern it by equitable laws, assist it in times of necessity, settling it gradually with a prepared people, and so create a home for these destitute multitudes. ”

“ To secure the widest distribution of public lands in limited quantities among settlers for residence and cultivation, and thus make the greatest number of individual homes, was the primary object of the public-land legislation in the early days of the Republic. ”

“ Navigation of water craft is called marine navigation to distinguish it from navigation of aircraft, called air navigation. Navigation of a vessel on the surface is sometimes called surface navigation to distinguish it from navigation of a submarine. Navigation of vehicles across land or ice is called land navigation. The expression polar navigation refers to navigation in the regions near the geographical poles of the earth, where special techniques are employed. ”

“ Thus, by the terms of these "laws," the people have no control whatever over either the legislative, the executive, or the judicial departments of the territorial government until a time before which, by the natural progress of population, the territorial government will be superseded by a state government. ”

“ Moreover, the urban population devotes a great deal of physical strength, and a great deal of land, to such things as wine, silk, tobacco, hops, asparagus and so on, instead of to corn, potatoes and cattle-breeding. ”

“ We have, for the most part, in our history given promptly to the people of the territories a large measure of local government, and have, when the admission of a state was proposed, thought only of boundaries and population. ”

“ When grants of public lands may be allowed, necessary for the encouragement of important public improvements, the proceeds of the sale of such lands, and not the lands themselves, should be so applied. ”

“ To assume that the public lands are applicable to ordinary State objects, whether of public structures, police, charity, or expenses of State administration, would be to disregard to the amount of the value of the public lands all the limitations of the Constitution and confound to that extent all distinctions between the rights and powers of the States and those of the United States ”

“ That the government, of a territory, organized by an act of Congress, is provisional and temporary; and, during its existence, all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle, with their property, in the territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by congressional or territorial legislation. ”

“ This noxious seed brings noxious fruits to light. It must be the highest task of all governments to carry out land reform—the great problem that decides the destiny of a world—by all possible legislative measures. ”

“ There was a domain of public land, which was continually extended by the conquests of neighboring States and the partial confiscations that followed. Although land in the conquered territory was sometimes granted to the poorer citizens, there were large tracts of public lands that were either cultivated or allowed to remain in pasture. ”

“ Our system for the disposal of the public lands, originating with the fathers of the Republic, has been improved as experience pointed the way, and gradually adapted to the growth and settlement of our Western States and Territories. ”

“ But the foreign land-shark, and the corporate land-shark, dwindle into insignificance by the side of the individual land-shark. Every hamlet, town, city, and state in the Union is in the grasp of the individual land holder. Starting with his fellows as a pioneer two hundred and fifty years ago, with his pickaxe on his shoulder, he has steadily grown in size and importance, so that today he holds in his hands the destinies of the Republic and the life of his fellow citizens. His bulk has become mastodonian in proportions and his influence has shrivelled up the energies of the people. ”

“ A coalescence of the people into bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.
The territorial series enters into the plan of government of modern civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we have the township, the county, the state, and the United States; the inhabitants of each of which are an organized body politic with powers of local self-government. Each organization is in full vitality and performs its functions within a definite sphere in which it is supreme. ”

“ And so with every other great leading law, affecting any great commercial, farming, or manufacturing interest of the country. The legislation of a land is a type of itself. How can our other great institutions be safe and lasting if our legislation be unstable? ”

“ I recommend also such legislation as will render available and efficient for the purposes of instruction, so far as is consistent with the public service, the cabinets or museums of invention, of surgery, of education, and of agriculture, and other collections the property of the National Government.
The capital of the nation should be something more than a mere political center. ”

“ This exclusive possession of a defined territory is a characteristic feature of all civilised and normal states. It is found to be a necessary condition of the efficient exercise of governmental functions. But we cannot say that it is essential to the existence of a state. A state without a fixed territory—a nomadic tribe for example—is perfectly possible. A non-territorial society may be organised for the fulfilment of the essential functions of government, and if so, it will be a true state. ”

“ Numbers of acts are passed every session which assert the right of the state over the land, and transfer it from one man, or set of men, to another. It seems to me that the principle is clear, and rests upon the assertion of the state's ownership of the land ”