Politics means creating policy. Difference between policy follow up and no follow up is the difference between a statesman and a politician. 

Currently, our endowment sections of ground are not producing adequate funding for local education. Hence, yearly levies. A proposed answer is to “take back federal land” that is located within the state, and “manage it via the state” removing NEPA that has national, handcuffing regulations which currently bind BLM and Forest Service. Truth is the correct wording is not “take back”. Years ago, in consequence of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in response to dealing with the acquired territory northwest of the Ohio River (the area that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin), the 1st congress set out the rules for land owners among the current inhabitants and established the rules for said inhabitants to be- come states and join the United States. Upon purchasing new territories like the Louisiana Purchase and oth- ers, an agency, due to the size of the newly purchased land, was appointed and formed in 1812. The agency was called General Land Office or GLO, the predecessor to the current day Bureau of Land Management or BLM. By assignment GLO surveyed and disposed of the ground as payment to war veterans and to new citi- zens who in turn paid for the ground to pay off the debt of the newly purchased territories. New states, even the 13 original colonies, which had claim to nearby western land, gave up “unpatented” land so the GLO could disperse the land to those who wanted land ownership and wanted to become a state and join the new union. Most of our current roads, fence lines, and farm field boundaries are still located on section lines established from the GLO’s work in the 1800’s and thereafter. Nearly all the private ground in our county is the result of land disposed of by GLO. At statehood, Idaho, like other states and like the 13 original states, relinquished “unpatented” ground for continued disposal by GLO. This authority was based on the precedent set for in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which stated “that new States shall never interfere with the primary disposal of soil by the United States in congress assembled”.

However, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 gave specific direction protecting and encouraging land owner- ship so citizens and new states would have “equal footing” as people in the original 13 colonies. Land owner- ship was the driving energy for early Americans as a deed would give security, in part, so immigrants could keep the fruit of their labor and or worship as they saw fit. This was in contrast to the old country where the king, by conquest, held all land ownership which he then shared to his friends: squires, dukes, earls etc.
Other people on the land, in the old country, lived as tenants and thus did not have the control, as it were, to the fruit of their labor or ability to worship as they saw fit. It is well to note that Thomas Jefferson, in the Dec- laration of Independence, penned the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and property”. At the last minute “property” was changed to “pursuit of happiness”. It was this individual land ownership that created the foundation of the great experiment of America. Land ownership or accountability changed disaster to survival for William Bradford and the Pilgrims. The idea of such land ownership was preposterous to Kings, Squires, Dukes, Earls, and self-styling Dictators or Despots who would say an emphatic “NO”, as it removed from their power the ability to dictate beliefs, and to easily pilfer from the fruit of the labor of tenants.

Land ownership/disposal continued from 1787 through the 1800’s, and was upheld in court (cit) (for the 35 states east of Colorado) until a bump in the road, the Rockies, was met. The Rockies and its subsequent 13 adjacent states proved rougher and tougher to settle as “garden” plots weren’t as numerous in the high, cold, rocky areas of the west. Consequently not as many people bought or settled the ground. Hence, the Home- stead Act and other Acts were decreed to encourage new citizens to buy/prove up on ground in the Rockies.