Did you ever look at a map of the original 13 colonies? Tell me, how did the boundaries change when they became states instead of colonies? Other than the state of Georgia, they remained identical. The boundaries of the colonies had long been established and there were no significant changes when the war was over and the business of building the nation began.
Didn't know that was part of the discussion. Priot to the land being declared a State, it was owned, and controlled, by the fed.
And yes, national parks are owned by the fed, but the poor state in which they sit, and the restrictions of commerce within their boundaries speaks nearly precisely to the complain that Jefferson had to Madison in the letter you reference...how many jobs has the fed killed over the years...how many people have been put out of work by the fed refusing to allow any commerce on those lands?
The purpose of the National Parks is to preserve some land in its original condition. No jobs have been lost because the land is held in reserve. The question you need to ask yourself is how many jobs have been lost because of the hoarding of massive acres by the few. That was what Jefferson was referring to if you had read the entirety of the letter.
"This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe. The property of this country is absolutely concentered in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards."
So which part of that do you want to claim was enacted into law by the constitution? He was talking about property being held by royalty and petit royalty....we have no such arrangement here....the bulk of property is held in private hands which is precisely what he was saying should happen...it is no reflection on the state of property ownership in this country today....if anything, the laws which restrict commerce on federal lands are a call back to the state of affairs that Jefferson was describing in europe. How many jobs would the simple cleanup of national forests provide and how many acres of timber would be saved from fire every year if national forest land were not choked with underbrush?
The bulk of the land is held in the hands of the few, not the many. I agree with you that the management of the forests makes no sense just as I would argue that the selling of our timber to China while shutting down sawmills here makes no sense. Very little of what government does makes any sense, and even less sense can be made of private industry that ships the jobs out of country, along with the profits from such industries, strictly to support other economies while they destroy the American economy. China now has more billionaires then the US, has trillions of dollars in reserve, and is enlarging its military to challenge ours. And yet private industry continues to fund this actions, and the so-called "government" we have allows it to occur.
None of that statement above was directed towards taxation...or the redistribution of the earnings of one individual to another individual who earned less...The conversation was restricted to the state of ownership of near entire nations by the sovereign, his family, and those he saw fit to benefit with title and land. It certainly didn't speak to a free people...and the freedom to succeed or fail without the benefit of largess from the government.....or the very real neglect that could be charged by relinquishing one's responsibility to one's children to government.
Again, you did not actually read the letter.
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Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent.
But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state."
In yet another letter you might want to read, Jefferson said this:
"We are all the more reconciled to the tax on importations, because it falls exclusively on the rich, and with the equal partition of intestate's estates, constitutes the best agrarian law.. Our revenues once liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., and the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise
by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spare a cent from his earnings."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811. ME 13:41
As I have said before, people really have no concept of what the Founders expected from what they had created.
