Title: Utah Passes Law to Seize Federal Land Source:
YouTube and Various URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0EJLVi8h00 Published:Mar 31, 2010 Author:Posted by TenthAmendmentCenter Post Date:2010-12-02 10:35:51 by GreyLmist Keywords:Constitution, Enclave Clause, Utah, eminent domain v. state sovere Views:134 Comments:14
TenthAmendmentCenter | March 31, 2010
Judge Napolitano, on the Glenn Beck show, interviews UT State Rep. Carl Wimmer and Josh Eboch of the Tenth Amendment Center on eminent domain, state sovereignty, and more.
At 3:14, Judge Napolitano shows a map of the US marked in red for land claimed to be federal property, largely in the West. 80-90% of Utah and its resources have been so taken over, vast amounts during the Clinton admin (UN Heritage agenda, restricted roads, etc.), and D.C. wants more. The phrase "eminent domain" is nowhere in the Constitution. This is the "Enclave Clause" (Article I, Section 8, Clause 17) that D.C. has been violating as if bogus court rulings have nullified the stipulation that it must have the consent of State Legislatures for any land aquisitions from them (ex: for "needful Buildings" like Post Offices and roads for them; dock-Yards and military bases for the Common Defense of the public in general):
The Congress shall have Power...to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;
Our Federal government is not empowered with ownership of land or anything else, whether it's purchased or donated for public use or for its own needs. It is merely to act as a caretaker of what then belongs to Americans as a whole, not "the government". It is not entitled to sell-off our property to foreigners nor to mortgage it for collateral on its loans/debts. Any such unlawful transactions amount to buying/selling stolen property.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡
"The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." -- Thomas Jefferson
Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a Moab-based group that supports a bill to designate about 9 million acres of wilderness in Utah.
Edit to note that Scott Groene is not the Senate candidate mentioned in the title of the article
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"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
There's just a giant gulf between the story book version of our history and the moral stature of our federal government. Far too many Americans still suffer from the misplaced loyalty to institutions that have no loyalty to the people.
They will steal whatever isn't nailed down and abscond with rights and property that are not, have never been, their own.
This gov't. is far too greedy, and it has its claws in far too many concerns. It's starting to really hurt a lot of folks. They're fighting back.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop
Long excerpt below from an excellent speech on this issue that also addresses the so-called "Property Clause", which is really more like a "Power of Attorney Clause" to act in trust on behalf of the American public (Article 1V, Section 3, Clause 2 pertaining to Territories becoming New States and the disposal of perishable items like "needful Buildings", military items no longer usable, and that sort of thing -- not supposed "eminent domain" and "ownership" by D.C.).
This clause is like a lease agreement -- intended to convey the authority for Congress to regulate rules (ex: Stay out of Area 51), manage and maintain the territories and equipment that has been properly acquired (without violating the Enclave Clause, for instance) so that it does not have to repetitively seek the consent of a particular State to reasonably attend to such responsibilities within it. However, Congress still has to answer to all of the States collectively for any improper or hazardous actions in the course of managing those acquisitions. That should be easy enough to understand but seemingly not for judges and politicos with Treasonous agendas to subvert the Constitution.
As difficult as it may be to speak of a single constitutional principle in the time I have remaining, I will, nonetheless, attempt to highlight just one principle of our constitutional scheme which is of keen interest to us here in the western States but which actually affects every State. This principle is that of State territorial sovereignty.
The Tenth of the Bill of Rights recognizes and establishes, as the Supreme Law of the Land, that all “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.”
Among the powers which the States and the people jealously reserved to themselves was sovereignty over the soil within their respective states.
This fact was expressly affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1827: “Each (former colony) declared itself sovereign and independent, according to the limits of its territory.” “[T]he soil and sovereignty within their acknowledged limits were as much theirs at the declaration of independence as at this hour.” Harcourt v. Gaillard, 25 U.S. 523, 1827
Sovereignty over soil is essential to the very existence of the American states as they are conceived under the Constitution. In the case State of Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700, 1868, the court stated: “In the Constitution the term state most frequently expresses the combined idea ..., of people, territory, and government. A state, in the ordinary sense of the Constitution, is a political community of free citizens, occupying a territory of defined boundaries, and organized under a government sanctioned and limited by a written constitution, and established by the consent of the governed.”
By contrast, the federal government is not defined by an extent of territory with the exception that the “federal city,” Washington D.C., which was limited to “ten miles square”; and even this tract was to be made available only by the voluntary cession of one or more States.
Evidence of the Framers concern for the protection of State territorial sovereignty is plain to see in Article I, section 8 clause 17 of the Constitution, the Enclave Clause. Here, the Congress has been delegated authority to, “exercise exclusive authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings.” (For further reading on the adoption of this clause refer to Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention for September 5, 1787.)
To the extent that the sovereignty of a State over the soil within its borders may be degraded or denied by another, so to is our original constitutional form degraded and denied. The people’s liberty, in the form of local municipal self- governance is rooted out. In its place, distant authorities assume and exercise unauthorized power over local municipal affairs.
So how, you might ask, has our state territorial sovereignty, as conceived under our Constitution been degraded and denied? The short answer is that the protection for State territorial sovereignty which was built into the Enclave Clause, and elsewhere within the Constitutional text, has been utterly destroyed by a succession of Supreme Court decisions.
In 1875, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that State legislative consent was not actually needed for the federal government, or its departments, to acquire land within a State: “The consent of a State can never be a condition precedent to (the exercise of federal powers). Such consent is needed only, if at all, for the transfer of jurisdiction and of the right of exclusive legislation after the land shall have been acquired.” Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367, 1875
The Kohl court severed the consent requirement from the act of federal purchase and pasted it to the exercise of “exclusive (federal) legislation” over the purchased land. Congress was thus set free to acquire lands within the States at will.
But even this was not enough usurped power for the federals. In 1885, the Court determined that once a tract had been purchased, using the sovereign power of eminent domain if necessary, then the Congress could exercise exclusive legislation over the tract without State consent so long as the tract is, “used as a means to carry out the purposes of the government.”
And now we come to this question. As to land, what are the legitimate “purposes of the government?” We find an answer to this question in the case Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U.S. 518, 1938.
In Collins v. Yosemite Park, the Court stated that, “The United States has large bodies of public lands. These properties are used for forests, parks, ranges, wild life sanctuaries, flood control, and other purposes which are not covered by Clause 17 (the Enclave Clause).” This statement implies that Congress is capable of engagement in an open ended if not unlimited array of activities upon the lands that it owns, all of which may now be construed as “purposes of the government.”
By the Supreme Court decisions in Kohl, Ft. Leavenworth, and Collins, Congress, through its instrumentalities, may now purchase within a State any tract of any size it wishes, without so much as State legislative consultation, let alone consent, and, having purchased such tract, it may exercise exclusive legislative jurisdiction over it. The combined effect of these decisions is to render the Enclave Clause utterly without purpose or effect. The constitutional fabric was torn asunder. The notion of State territorial sovereignty was struck a fatal blow.
“There is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our government by the noiseless, and therefore unalarming, instrumentality of the supreme court.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Judge Wm. Johnson, March 4, 1823.
In 1819, in the case McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, the Supreme Court held that the power to create must include the power to preserve. The power to destroy that which has been created cannot be held in different hands because such a structure of power would negate the power to create. In the words of the court, “(A) power to create implies a power to preserve. (A) power to destroy, if wielded by a different hand, is hostile to, and incompatible with these powers to create and to preserve.” It is upon this principle that States are denied the power to tax and, thereby, in theory, destroy the “instrumentalities” created by the United States.
One would think that this principle announced in McCulloch would act in the reverse as well. That is, insofar as territorial sovereignty is essential to the existence of States, and because States are the creation of the people living there, it would be logical to conclude that Congress, as the “different hand,” would be denied any power to consume State territory without State consent. For just as the power to tax is the power to destroy if carried to its furthest extent, so to is the power to consume State territory the power to destroy States if carried to its furthest extent. While this may be an absurd conclusion it is nonetheless the inevitable conclusion if the power given to Congress by the court, after having utterly destroyed State territorial protection under the Enclave Clause, is carried to its fullest extent. It was Abraham Lincoln who said that, “Nothing should ever be implied as law which leads to absurd or unjust consequences.” Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress, July 4, 1861
While it is concerning in the extreme that the Court, as shown by its decisions in Kohl, Ft. Leavenworth, and Collins, would defy its duty to defend the Constitution as it is written, it is equally concerning that, during the course of cutting the Enclave Clause from the constitutional fabric, not one State objected. Nor do they object today.
I will conclude with a brief analysis of the Property Clause of Article Four. This clause, reads, “Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.” [My note: belonging not to "the government" but to all of America]
In 1976, the Supreme Court, in Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529, 1976, determined that under the Property Clause authority to “make all needful rules and regulations” Congress possesses a “complete” legislative power “without limitation.”
There are at least two contradictions inherent in this finding of the court.
First, if the authority to “make all needful rules and regulations” was intended by the Framers to be a “complete” power “without limitation” then why was the singular “power to dispose” also expressly delegated? Would not a “complete” power “without limitation” include the power to dispose? Either the court is wrong or the Framers are guilty of very poor grammatical construction.
Second, in an earlier day, the court pronounced that the Constitution is opposed to the possession of an unlimited power in any hand: “The theory of our governments, State and National, is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere. The executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of these governments are all of limited and defined powers.” Citizens' Savings & Loan Ass'n v. City of Topeka, 87 U.S. 655, 1874
If you are beginning to get the sense that perhaps the Property Clause has been misconstrued by the court, you are right. If you were to research the history of this clause, and at least five others to which it can be directly related, you will find that Congress is burdened with a constitutional mandate to extinguish the federal title in the public lands and to dispose of them. It is this mandate which compelled the Congress to extinguish federal title in the lands of the Northwest Territories, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the Florida Cession and Purchase of 1819. And it is this mandate that Congress has denied when, in 1976 with passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, it declared that the remaining public lands would remain in federal ownership.
It is demonstrable from the historical record that the Property Clause demands disposition of the public lands. It is also demonstrable that continued possession of the public lands in federal ownership denies these western States their constitutional right of equal footing as to political rights and sovereignty with the original States. No State that I am aware of, however, has chosen to challenge this vast and bold usurpation of State territorial sovereignty and constitutional right which Congress adopted in 1976.
It is not difficult to understand why many have a sense that we are losing their country. It is well understood by many, and by you here today, that the first principles set down by the Framers more than 200 years ago are drifting into the annals of history. However, I would ask how many among this public can claim to understand the details of our constitutional history and its founding principles in sufficient detail to actually defend them? or to challenge our political and judicial officers to defend them? Study of our constitutional history and its principles, if well done, will clarify and bring into focus the underlying causes of this general sense of loss and distill them into focused courses of purposeful action toward explicit and comprehensible goals?
As we go forth with the duty to stand in defense of original constitutional principles, we will be confronted by those who will argue that “the court has ruled” on a given matter, or that the current condition is “settled law.” Don’t be easily deflected from your objective by these retorts. The legal principle of stare decisis, meaning “to stand by things decided,” is appropriate in matters of common or civil law. However, in matters of constitutional law, we are instructed that stare decisis is not appropriate. None other that Chief Justice John Marshall and Benjamin Franklin and even the Utah State Constitution instruct us that “the security of the people’s liberty is dependent upon a frequent recurrence to first constitutional principles.” You can also take comfort from others of high judicial stature who have denied that we are bound, by the principle of stare decisis, to slavish obey what mere men have said recently about the meaning of our Constitution:
“The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.” Graves v. O’Keefe, 306 U.S. 466, 491-492, 1939, Justice Frankfurter concurring opinion.
“Nor will I abide by the decisions of judges, believed by me to be invasions of the great lex legum. I, too have sworn to observe and maintain the Constitution.” Justice Daniel, The License Cases, 46 U.S. 504, 612, 1947
A judge “remembers above all that it is the Constitution which he swore to support and defend, not the gloss which his predecessors may have put upon it.” Justice William O. Douglas, Stare Decisis, 49 Colum. L. Rev. 735, 1949
Chief Justice Burger “categorically” rejected the “thesis that what the Court said lately controls over the Constitution.” Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 22- 23, 1970
I leave you with one final thought. If we fail to inform ourselves we will fail to preserve the gifts that we have inherited and which we are morally obligated to pass intact to future generations. It was Ben Franklin who said that, “A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.”
Thank you.
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"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Nevada's even worse and it looks like 80-90% of everything west of the Dakotas and Texas is "federally owned."
Yes, Nevada does look worse and I suspect that it has more to do with silver than Area 51. I remember seeing some documentary long ago that early miners there who were looking for gold kept trying to get rid of blue mud as a nuisance without knowing at the time that it contained silver.
Should be interesting as I wonder how much of that property now has a "lien" on it.
I do too but it would be invalid.
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"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Nevada's even worse and it looks like 80-90% of everything west of the Dakotas and Texas is "federally owned."
Should be interesting as I wonder how much of that property now has a "lien" on it.
This could get interesting.
If Utah is able to make this stick then that gives the rest of the West the opportunity to kick the Feds out.
With Federal control reduced substantially they do not have basing for their tyranny.
"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡
"The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." -- Thomas Jefferson
#14. To: ghostdogtxn, Eric Stratton, randge, Original_Intent, All (#11)
Me: A ruling against them could get the USSCTraitors doing so dismissed for bad behavior.
you: Wanna bet?
It could happen. This issue is largely why Utah replaced a three-term incumbent Senator (Robert Bennet) with a Tea Party candidate before the election. In the video below, two wayward Florida judges are pronounced as removed from office. I especially like the bolded statement from the speech in the following excerpt:
The following is based off a speech given at Nullify Now! Orlando on 10-10-10
All of us need to work together so we can implement simple steps of diligence. These should include, but not be limited to the promotion of state sovereignty legislation, including the nullification of unlawful general government acts. And when we talk about legislation to push back, we need to go further than just saying that we won’t participate. We need to say, “when you send your federal agents here to try and overturn sovereign state law, our constitutional sheriffs are going to put them in jail – and you can come pay their fine to get ‘em out!”