Thanks, this is good.
“The Resolution of 1780, “the federal trust respecting public lands obligated the united States to extinguish both their governmental jurisdiction and their title to land that achieved statehood.”
In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, The Charter of Liberty contained these words, “The new Federal Government is an agent serving the states.”, “The delegated powers are few and defined”, “All powers not listed are retained by the states or the people”, “The Resolution of 1780 formed the basis upon which Congress was required to dispose of territorial and public lands”, “All laws shall be made by the Congress of the United States”. (not agency bureaucrats!)”
Also equal footing as it relates to why the federal government owns so much property in the western states and almost none in the original 13 states.
http://constitution.findlaw.com/article4/annotation16.html
Specifically, the Pollard’s case in Alabama:
http://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-4/22-doctrine-of-equality-of-states.html
“Pollard’s Lessee involved conflicting claims by the United States and Alabama of ownership of certain partially inundated lands on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama. The enabling act for Alabama had contained both a declaration of equal footing and a reservation to the United States of these lands.264 Rather than an issue of mere land ownership, the Court saw the question as one concerning sovereignty and jurisdiction of the States. Inasmuch as the original States retained sovereignty and jurisdiction over the navigable waters and the soil beneath them within their boundaries, retention by the United States of either title to or jurisdiction over common lands in the new States would bring those States into the Union on less than an equal footing with the original States. This, the Court would not permit. “Alabama is, therefore, entitled to the sovereignty and jurisdiction over all the territory within her limits, subject to the common law, to the same extent that Georgia possessed it, before she ceded it to the United States. To maintain any other doctrine, is to deny that Alabama has been admitted into the union on an equal footing with the original states, the constitution, laws, and compact, to the contrary notwithstanding.... [T]o Alabama belong the navigable waters and soils under them, in controversy in this case, subject to the rights surrendered by the Constitution to the United States; and no compact that might be made between her and the United States could diminish or enlarge these rights.” [Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 212, 228-229 (1845) (emphasis supplied). And see id. at 222-223.]
This decision applies to “the navigable waters and soils under them”
It does not necessarily apply to title to all land within the state’s boundaries.
I’m still waiting for somebody to point to a reference where all remaining public land was transferred to ownership of a state at statehood, especially for states west of the Mississippi, where cession by other states was not an issue.
In MO, the one state I’m reasonably familiar with in this regard, federal public land was still being sold off by the US in considerable quantity through WWI, with some title transfers as late as the 60s.