Gold may be ubiquitous, but gold, in commercial quantities to make it worth mining, is hardly an everyday occurrence. The geology of the United States is such, that most of the gold found in commercial quantities, is found in the Western United States. The politics of that geology is that huge tracks of the Western United States, is in one form or another, owned by the federal government, and commonly, if not always accurately, denominated as “public lands.” For instance, 47.7% of California is federal lands. 42.3% of Arizona is owned by the federal government, as well as 81.8% of Nevada, 66.5% of Utah, 61.8% of Alaska and 34.7% of New Mexico. What makes the United States unique is that the mining laws enshrine the American virtue and tradition of “self-initiation.” Historically, no permit or permission of the federal government was needed for a prospector or miner to enter the public lands for the purpose of finding and mining precious minerals. If he had the gumption to do it, he just did it.
Such activity was hardly the road to instant wealth. The great economist, Adam Smith, in his classic treatise “The Wealth of Nations” observed: “Of all those expensive and uncertain projects which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people that engage in them, there is none perhaps more perfectly ruinous than the search after new silver and gold mines.”
Indeed, those who made the most money out of mining were those who mined the miners. Every time you buy a pair of Levis, you should be reminded that the great fortunes that survived from the California Gold Rush were founded by those who sold goods and services to the miners. This ranges from merchants, hotel owners, railroad magnates, and purveyors of many other professions.
The lure of gold, however, is a fever that still runs unchecked, and a byproduct of that fever is the American tradition of “self-initiation.” It is in the historic DNA of Americans, unlike Europeans and most of the world, that we do not need the government’s permission to do anything. We are just damn well going to do it, permit or no permit. That spirit of “self-initiation,” as it relates to mining, is codified in federal legalese in Title 30 United States Code § 22.
“Except as otherwise provided, all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, shall be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which they are found to occupation and purchase, by citizens of the United States… under regulations prescribed by law, and according to the local customs and rules of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States.”
In California Coastal Comm’n v. Granite Rock (1987) 480 U.S. 572, 580-581 [94 L.Ed.2d 577, 591] the United States Supreme Court expounded on the Mining Act of 1872 as follows:
“Under the Mining Act of 1872, 17 Stat. 91, as amended, 30 USC § 22 et seq., a private citizen may enter federal lands to explore for mineral deposits. If a person locates a valuable mineral deposit on federal land, and perfects the claim by properly staking it and complying with other statutory requirements, the claimant ‘shall have the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all the surface included within the lines of their locations,’ [citation], although the United States retains title to the land. The holder of a perfected mining claim may secure a patent to the land by complying with the requirements of the Mining Act and regulations promulgated thereunder [citation] and, upon issuance of the patent, legal title to the land passes to the patent holder.” (Granite Rock, supra, at pp. 575-576 [94 L.Ed.2d at p. 588].)”
The tradition of American miners, and the mining laws that embody that tradition, stand in stark opposition to the spirit of federal and state regulators, for whom no unregulated activity can possibly be legitimate. In California, whole categories of mining, such as suction dredge mining, have for over nine years been regulated out of existence. Legal challenges to these regulations have consumed the time, effort, and resources of prospectors and miners, who would otherwise have used the self- same assets in the production of wealth for the benefit of their communities and country, themselves and their posterity, to the advantage of all. The “self-initiation” that built America was based on a vibrant and vital determination to wrest from an often hostile land, a society and life that mirrored the ability to build and create a great and free country, without the necessity of government permission. The placer and hard rock mining laws rest upon the bedrock of that “self-initiation,” as does all America. Gold is where you find it-but you must be allowed to find it.