Oklahoma Law Review Volume 70 Number 4 2018 Frontier Feudalism: Agrarian Populism Meets Future Interest Arcana in the Land of Manifest Destiny Gerard Michael D’Emilio Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr Part of the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation Gerard M. D’Emilio, Frontier Feudalism: Agrarian Populism Meets Future Interest Arcana in the Land of Manifest Destiny, 70 OKLA. L. REV. 943 (2018), https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr/vol70/iss4/5 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oklahoma Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COMMENT Frontier Feudalism: Agrarian Populism Meets Future Interest Arcana in the Land of Manifest Destiny The Cole Porter classic, “Don’t Fence Me In,” asks the heavens (or maybe the state) for unrestricted “land, lots of land under starry skies above.”1 A full-throated acclamation of “frontier living,” Porter’s tune also evokes the boundless potential of achievement and ownership so ensconced in American mythology. Echoing since the clamor of “Manifest Destiny,”2 the urge to expand remains a persistent national theme. It also finds actualization at the state level; indeed, Oklahoma exemplifies such an urge, its archetypal “Boomers and Sooners”3 the human embodiments of an unquenchable desire to set one’s stake in the land. But such quixotic imagery must find its realization in the framework of the law—the law of property, to be specific.