Returned? Your word implies those lands once belonged to the states, and were somehow illegitimately appropriated by the Federal government.
The truth of the matter is quite different.
In general "Federal lands" were purchased (i.e., 1803 Louisiana Purchase) or won (i.e., 1848 Mexican War) before the resulting states were even designated as territories.
So that land was Federal land from Day One, and as such the Feds can rightfully determine conditions to sell or grant it to others.
About 28% of all US territory is Federal Land, or around 636 million acres.
If on average that land is worth, say, $1,000 per acre, we could sell it all, and pay off about 4% of our national debt.
If it's worth $2,500 per acre, now we are up to paying off 10% of national debt.
US Federal Lands:
This map shows Louisiana Purchase, Mexican War and other Federal Acquisitions:
IbJensen: "Promising 40 acres and a mule is communism.
Where does the land come from? How about the mule?"
I'll set aside the fact that you somehow mis-learned the definition of "communism" as: "anything IbJensen finds disgusting".
But "communism" does have a real definition, and it's government ownership of the means of production, which is not what we're looking at here.
But we'll set all that aside...
Union General Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order Number 15 designated abandoned lands and Islands of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Sherman's obvious purpose was to put those lands back to work, and provide homes for thousands of freed slaves then following the Union Army.
About 10,000 (or 18,000 according to this) of such 40-acre lots were distributed before President Andrew Johnson cancelled the order (Fall 1865) and returned those abandoned lands to their previous owners.
The larger issue here is: what was "just compensation" for former slaves, and "40 acres and a mule" has been cited as a generally accepted standard.
I have merely pointed out that the total values of "40 acres and a mule" both in, say, 1865 and today are far less than any of the following:
- The cost to purchase freedom for every slave in 1860, which was $3 billion then, equivalent to around $10 trillion today.
- The total cost (just in treasure) of the Civil War, which was around $10 billion then, equivalent to $33 trillion today.
- The costs over 40 years of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs, and similar give-aways, currently running around $1 trillion per year.
Of course, not all that welfare goes to descendants of slaves.
But my argument here is simply that "40 acres and a mule" was not only cheap, but (assuming the land was properly paid for, not just seized), was far more moral than endless welfare, which only creates dependency on government and destroys families, with all it's resulting social pathologies.