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When the original colonies formed the union, they ceded disputed lands east of the Mississippi to the United States to settle soldiers wages (Ohio) and make money by selling them to settlers to pay off federal war debts. All of the land in the states east of the Mississippi were sold and the federal government retained no lands in federal ownership in those states except for lighthouses and forts.

All lands in the east that are National Parks etc. were purchased or donated in ownership to the federal government.

West of the Mississippi, the lands not settled were at first public domain. When they had been surveyed and made available for homestead under acts of prescription leading to a land patent, they became “public lands.” (Supreme Court definition.)

Around the early 1900s, the federal government “reserved” lands with forests from settlement. These Forest Reserves became the National Forests. Lands not disposed of that were used for grazing to which some split estate interest had accrued were organized under the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 so that there could be some management oversight from overgrazing by wandering sheep herds. These lands were to be kept in trust for the people of the states in which they lay.

Under FLPMA in the 1970s, the federal government just decreed that it would retain all the lands not settled in federal ownership - in effect violating that trust.

Under the equal footing doctrine, all states are to be equal. In the West, lands in many states are still in federal ownership. This is not equal footing. The Civil War is over and the east coast should be divested of its hegemony over the west. The Western states are all grown up now and should be given back their inheritance.

The federal govt's land dispersal policies worked well east of the 98th meridian and were a failure to the west. That is because the 98th meridian is the wet-dry line and those smaller acre parcels to the east were workable because they had adequate rainfall.

As a contrast, you compare federal policies to Texas policies. Texas retained her lands when she entered the union and dispersed her western lands in very large increments.

It is generally accepted that Congress did this because the previously settled eastern half of the nation was trying to limit the economic/political power of the west.

'The Great Plains' authored by Walter Prescott Webb, published in 1932, is still in print and considered the authority on settlement of the west.