## Facts

- The United States sued in equity in federal court in Colorado to compel removal of a fence that effectively enclosed about 20,000 acres of federal public land.
- Defendants Daniel A. Camfield and William Drury constructed and maintained a fencing configuration that enclosed the even-numbered sections (public land) within two Colorado townships.
- The land pattern arose from a railroad grant: defendants owned the odd-numbered sections acquired from the Union Pacific Railroad Company, while the even-numbered sections remained federal public domain.
- Defendants placed the fence entirely on their privately owned odd-numbered parcels but arranged it to surround and thereby enclose the intermingled federal parcels.
- Defendants asserted they installed swinging gates at section lines to allow access to the enclosed public lands.
- Defendants justified the fencing as part of an irrigation and pasturage plan involving construction of reservoirs and management of grazing on their lands and nearby lands.
- The United States proceeded under the Act of Feb. 25, 1885, which prohibited unlawful enclosures of public lands.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress, consistent with the Constitution, may prohibit and abate an effective enclosure of public lands where the fence is erected wholly on private land but functions to enclose federal land.
2. Whether such federal regulation improperly intrudes on state authority over fences and land use under the Tenth Amendment and state police powers.
3. Whether the existence of gates or asserted beneficial purposes prevents the fencing from constituting an unlawful “enclosure” under the 1885 Act.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the decree ordering relief for the United States.
- The Court upheld the Act of Feb. 25, 1885 as a valid exercise of congressional power.
- The Court held the statute reaches fencing schemes that effectively enclose public lands even if the fence line is located on private parcels.
- The Court treated defendants’ configuration as an unlawful enclosure in substance and rejected a reading that would limit the Act to fences physically on federal land.
- The Court held the gates and the claimed irrigation purpose did not defeat the statute where the practical effect was to exclude or control access to federal lands.

## Legal Principles

- The United States, as owner of public lands within a state, has the rights of a proprietor to maintain possession, pursue trespassers, and secure its property from effective dispossession.
- Congress may legislate to protect federal public lands, including by prohibiting and providing remedies against private conduct that encloses or appropriates federal lands.
- A statute aimed at unlawful enclosures of public lands may apply to conduct on adjacent private lands when necessary to prevent evasion that would otherwise defeat federal protection of federal property.
- Federal legislation protecting federal property may overlap with matters commonly associated with state police power without being unconstitutional, because the regulated subject is interference with federal property rights.
- Formal compliance (placing fences only on private land or installing gates) does not control when the arrangement’s practical effect is to enclose and appropriate federal public lands.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained federal authority to prevent private parties from using fencing on their own parcels to achieve effective enclosure and appropriation of intermingled federal public lands, confirming Congress’s power to protect federal property through the 1885 anti-enclosure statute.


Camfield v. United States, 167 U.S. 518 (1897)