Position Papers The Principle Approach as Proprietary

Transcription

1 2009 The Principle Approach as Proprietary

2 How does the Foundation for American Christian Education have proprietary rights to the Principle Approach? Statement of Position The Principle Approach is a registered trademark of the Foundation for American Christian Education (the Foundation; FACE). This is a legal designation that fulfills in every way the Biblical foundations and definitions concerning property. The original author of the Principle Approach, Rosalie June Slater, during her lifetime in 1995, authorized the Foundation Board of Trustees to secure copyright registration (i.e., legal title) to the name Principle Approach as a means of sustaining the integrity of the philosophy and methodology in its original intent. The seminal volume, written by Rosalie June Slater and first published in 1964 by the Foundation, bears the title Teaching and Learning America s Christian History: the Principle Approach. This original volume presents the Principle Approach as a Biblical methodology of teaching and learning patterned after America s historic method of Biblical reasoning that puts the truth of God s word at the heart of every subject in the curriculum. 1 The Foundation invests its resources including labor, time, and money in giving definition, description and practice to this specific idea the Principle Approach. Since 1964, its publications, training, and multiple efforts have centered upon the Foundation s mission to publish and teach America s Christian history and method of education by Biblical principles to restore Christian self-government and character to the individual, to families, to churches, and to the nations. The very nature of the Principle Approach (restoring the Christian self-government and character) demands a wide-spread dissemination and practice of the method. The Foundation recognizes, encourages, and often rewards other individuals, institutions, and ministries who teach and/or practice the Principle Approach. As proprietor of the term Principle Approach, the Foundation requires that those individuals, institutions, and ministries give due recognition of proprietary rights by appropriately referencing the Foundation, and obtain express permission of the Foundation in accordance with copyright laws where there is extensive use. Those who practice and teach the Principle Approach have the responsibility of maintaining its integrity aided by the many publications and training provided by the Foundation that establish thoroughly the original nature and process of Principle Approach practice. Likewise, the Foundation maintains its stewardship responsibility in protecting its property from any unapproved use. The Foundation encourages the expansion and impact of the Principle Approach through others in their respective spheres of influence to effect a nation-wide, even world-wide, education that honors God and that teaches study content in the light of God s Word. 2 1 Slater, Rosalie J.; Teaching and Learning America s Christian History: the Principle Approach. FACE, San Francisco, 1964, p Slater, Rosalie J. Teaching and Learning America's Christian History: The Principle Approach. FACE: San Francisco, 1975, p. xix. Foundation for American Christian Education

3 Documentation The Biblical Foundations, Key Definitions and, Supporting Documents and References I. Biblical Foundations Genesis 1:1 (NKJV) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Isaiah 43:7 (NKJV) Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him. Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Revelation 4:11 (NKJV) You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created. 2 Chronicles 32:29 (NKJV) Moreover he provided cities for himself, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance; for God had given him very much property. 1 Chronicles 15:13 (NKJV) For because you did not do it the first time, the LORD our God broke out against us, because we did not consult Him about the proper order. Job 1:10 (NKJV) Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. II. Definitions of Key Words All definitions are taken from Webster, Noah. Noah Webster s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language. Anaheim, CA : Foundation for American Christian Education, Underlines and highlights added. Proprietary, n. [Fr.proprietaire, from proprieté.] 1. A proprietor or owner; one who has the exclusive title to a thing; one who possesses or holds the title to a thing in his own right. a. Belonging to a proprietor or owner, or to a proprietary. Property, n. [This seems to be formed directly from proper; if not, it is contracted. The Latin is proprietas, Fr. proprieté, from which we have propriety.] 4. The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing; ownership. In the beginning of the world, the Creator gave to man dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air, and over every living thing. This is the foundation of man s property in the earth and in all its productions. Prior occupancy of land and of wild animal gives to the possessor the property of them. The labor of inventing, making or producing anything constitutes one of the highest and most indefeasible titles to property. Property is also acquired by inheritance, by gift or by purchase. Property is sometimes held in common, yet each man s right to his share in common land or stock is exclusively his own. One man may have the property of the soil, and another the right of use, by prescription or by purchase. Foundation for American Christian Education

4 5. Possession held in one s own right. Dryden. 6. The thing owned; that to which a person has the legal title, whether in his possession or not. It is one of the greatest blessings of civil society that the property of citizens is well secured. Literary property, the exclusive right of printing, publishing and making profit by one s own writings. No right or title to a thing can be so perfect as that which is created by a man s own labor and invention. The exclusive right of a man to his literary productions, and to the use of them for his own profit, is entire and perfect, as the faculties employed and labor bestowed are entirely and perfectly his own. On what principle then can a legislature or a court determine that an author can enjoy only a temporary property in his own productions? If a man s right to his own productions in writing is as perfect as to the productions of his farm or his shop, how can the former be abridged or limited, while the latter is held without limitation? Why do the productions of manual labor rank higher in the scale of rights or property, than the productions of the intellect? Proper, a. [Fr. propre; It. proprio or propio; Sp. propio; L. proprius, supposed to be allied to prope, near; W. priawd, proper, appropriate.] 1. Peculiar; naturally or essentially belonging to a person or thing; not common. 3. One s own. It may be joined with any possessive pronoun. Exclusive, a. [L. excludo; ex and claudo, to shut properly, to thrust out or eject] 1. Having the power of preventing entrance. 2. Debarring from participation; possessed and enjoyed to the exclusion of others; as an exclusive privilege. 3. Not taking into the account; not including or comprehending. Title, n. [L. titulus; It. titolo, to set or put; Sax. tithian, to give.] 6. Right; or that which constitutes a just cause of exclusive possession; that which is the foundation of ownership. But possession is not essential to a complete title. A claim is not a title. 7. The instrument which is evidence of a right. Possess, v. t. [L. possessus to sit; to sit in or on. Sax. besittan, to possess.] 1. To have the just and legal title, ownership or property of a thing: to own; to hold the title of, as the rightful proprietor, or to hold both the title and the thing the original sense of the word is enlarged, the holding or tenure being applied to the title or right, as well as to the thing itself. Right, n. [Sax. riht, reht; L. rectus, from the root of rego, properly to strain or stretch, whence straight.] 3. Just claim; legal title; ownership; the legal power of exclusive possession and enjoyment. 8. That which justly belongs to one. 9. Property; interest. 11. Authority; legal power. Belonging, ppr. [D. belang, concern, interest, importance, of be and lang; Ger. belangen, to attain to, or come to; anlangen, to arrive, to come to, to concern, touch or belong; Dan. anlanger, to arrive at, to belong. In Sax. gelangian is to call or bring. The radical sense of long is to extend or draw out, and with be or an, it signifies to extend to, to reach.] Pertaining; appertaining; being the property of; being a quality of; being the concern of; being appendant to; being a native of, or having a legal or permanent settlement in. Peculiar, a. [L. peculiaris, from peculium, one s own property, from pecus, cattle.] 1. Appropriate; belonging to a person and to him only. 4. Belonging to a nation, system or other thing, and not to others. Foundation for American Christian Education

5 III. Citations from Sources A. Of Property in General Marshall D. Ewell, A Review of Blackstone s Commentaries There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind as the right of property, or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. In the beginning of the world, we are informed by Holy Writ, the All-bountiful Creator gave to man dominion over all the earth, and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. This is the only true and solid foundation of man s dominion over external things. The earth, therefore, and all things therein are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the Creator. And, while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his immediate necessities required. These general notions of property were then sufficient to answer all the purposes of human life, and might perhaps still have answered them, had it been possible for mankind to have remained in a state of primeval simplicity; as may be collected from the manners of many American nations when first discovered by the Europeans themselves Not that this communion of goods seems ever to have been applicable, even in the earliest stages, to aught but the substance of the thing; nor could it be extended to the use of it. For by the law of nature and reason, he who first began to use it acquired therein a kind of transient property that lasted so long as he was using it, and no longer; or, to speak with greater precision, the right of possession continued for the same time only that the act of possession lasted. Thus the ground was in common, and no part of it was the permanent property of any man in particular. Yet, whoever was in the occupation of any determined spot of it, for rest, for shade, or the like, acquired for the time a sort of ownership, from which it would have been unjust and contrary to the law of nature to have driven him by force; but the instant that he quitted the use or occupation of it, another might seize it without injustice. Thus also a vine or other tree might be said to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to its produce; and yet any private individual might gain the sole property of the fruit which he had gathered for his own repast. But when mankind increased in number, craft, and ambition, it became necessary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion, and to appropriate to individuals, not the immediate use only, but the very substance of the thing to be used. Otherwise innumerable tumults must have arisen, and the good order of the world be continually broken and disturbed, while a variety of persons were striving who should get the first occupation of the same thing, or disputing which of them had actually gained it. As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devised to render it more easy, commodious, and agreeable, as habitations for shelter and safety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, so long as he had only an usufructuary property in them, which was to cease the instant that he quitted possession, if, as soon as he walked out of his tent or pulled off his garment, the next stranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one and to wear the other. In the case of Foundation for American Christian Education

6 habitations in particular, it was natural to observe that even the brute creation, to whom everything else was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young, that the birds of the air had nests and the beasts of the field had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a very flagrant injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them. Hence a property was soon established in every man s house and home-stall, which seem to have been originally mere temporary huts or movable cabins, suited to the design of Providence for more speedily peopling the earth, and suited to the wandering life of their owners, before any extensive property in the soil or ground was established As the world by degrees grew more populous, it daily became more difficult to find out new spots to inhabit without encroaching upon former occupants, and, by constantly occupying the same individual spot, the fruits of the earth were consumed and its spontaneous produce destroyed without any provision for future supply or succession. It therefore became necessary to pursue some regular method of providing a constant subsistence, and this necessity produced, or at least promoted and encouraged, the art of agriculture. And the art of agriculture, by a regular connection and consequence, introduced and established the idea of a more permanent property in the soil than had hitherto been received and adopted. It was clear that the earth would not produce her fruits in sufficient quantities without the assistance of tillage; but who would be at the pains of tilling it if another might watch an opportunity to seize upon and enjoy the product of his industry, art, and labor? Had not, therefore, a separate property in lands as well as movables been vested in some individuals, the world must have continued a forest, and men have been mere animals of prey, which, according to some philosophers, is the genuine state of nature. Whereas now, so graciously has Providence interwoven our duty and our happiness together, the result of this very necessity has been the ennobling of the human species, by giving it opportunities of improving its rational faculties, as well as of exerting its natural. Necessity begat property; and in order to insure that property, recourse was had to civil society, which brought along with it a long train of inseparable concomitants; states, government, laws, punishments, and the public exercise of religious duties. Thus connected together, it was found that a part only of society was sufficient to provide by their manual labor for the necessary subsistence of all, and leisure was given to others to cultivate the human mind, to invent useful arts, and to lay the foundations of science. The only question remaining is, How this property became actually vested, or what it is that gave a man an exclusive right to retain in a permanent manner that specific land which before belonged generally to everybody, but particularly to nobody. And as we before observed that occupancy gave the right to the temporary use of the soil, so it is agreed upon all hands that occupancy gave also the original right to the permanent property in the substance of the earth itself, which excludes every one else but the owner from the use of it And thus the legislature of England has universally promoted the grand ends of civil society, the peace and security of individuals, by steadily pursuing that wise and orderly maxim, of assigning to everything capable of ownership a legal and determinate owner. 3 3 Slater, Rosalie J. Teaching and Learning America's Christian History: The Principle Approach. FACE: San Francisco, 1975, p. 225 Foundation for American Christian Education

7 B. Because Ye Belong to Christ Rosalie Slater on Property Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea I have made him. Isaiah 43:7 Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11 And even as Paul reminds us that we are His workmanship we discover that the writings of John Locke, also studied by the generations of Christians who were concerned with self-government, contain a statement based upon Paul: For Men being all the Workmanship of one Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker: All the Servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his Order, and about his Business, they are his Property, whose Workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America: Christian Self-Government, p. 58:6 The American Colonists regarded themselves as God s property because man has a Property in his own Person and that person belongs to God. We are all His Workmanship we are made for His glory. The most explicit summary of the founding fathers conception of property is found in the writings of James Madison, educated as a theologian, but used of God to direct the writing of the Constitution. Madison indicates the external and internal meaning of property. He lists as external, property, land, merchandise, or money. As that more important property, the internal, he lists man s property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties, and the free choice of the objects on which to employ them Conscience is the most sacred of all property. Thus, we can see the Christian inheritance of property from the first century when liberty of conscience became more important to men than their very lives. We remember the Pilgrims fleeing from England, rather than submit to infringement of their rights of conscience. And here we find the founding fathers reminding us that we have a property in our rights and that the right to conscience is the most important. As we were reminded in the writings of Neander, liberty of conscience did not exist until Christianity appeared in the world. With its appearing the individual became important and his most sacred possession was his conscience. In our study of America s Christian History this important concept of property is basic to the recognition of its Christian foundation. Those who know that men are endowed by God to their real estate can see that whatever external goods and possessions an individual may have their real value is dependent upon his conscientious use of them. Thus the Christian accepts stewardship of what God gives him. Again we turn to Scripture for instruction in the matter of stewardship and we find our Lord admonishing his servants to put whatever he has entrusted into their care into active service in His vineyard: to be productive for the Lord, and to be fruitful in the work which He gives us to do to be faithful stewards profitable unto righteousness. 4 4 Slater, Rosalie J. Teaching and Learning America's Christian History: the Principle Approach. FACE: San Francisco, 1975, p Foundation for American Christian Education

8 C. The Great Foundation of Property John Locke continued From all which it is evident, that though the things of Nature are given in common, yet Man by being Master of himself, and Proprietor of his own Person, and the Actions or Labour of it, had still in himself the great Foundation of Property; and that which made up the great part of what he applyed to the Support or Comfort of his Being, when Invention and Arts, had improved the conveniencies of Life; was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others. p. 69:44 The Title to Property Though the Earth and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person: This no Body has any right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left in it, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the Common State Nature hath placed it in, it hath by this Labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common Right of other Men. Page 64:27 To the Use of the Industrious and Rational God gave the World to Men in common; but since he gave it them for their Benefit, and the greatest conveniencies of Life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and Labour was to be his Title to it;) not to the Fancy or Covetousness of the Quarrelsome and Contentious. Pages 65 66:34 The Measure of Property Nature has well set the measure of Property by the extent of Mens Labour and the Conveniencies of Life Before the appropriation of Land, he who gathered as much of the wild Fruit, killed, caught, or tamed, as many of the Beasts, as he could; he that so imployed his Pains about any of the spontaneous Products of Nature, as any way to alter them, from the state which Nature put them in, by placing any of his Labour on them, did thereby acquire a Propriety in them: But if they perished, in his Possession, without their due Use; if the Fruits rotted, or the Venison putrified, before he could spend it, he offended against the common Law of Nature, and was liable to be punished; he invaded his Neighbour s share, for he had no Right, farther than his Use called for any of them, and they might serve to afford him Conveniencies of Life. p. 66:36, Slater, Rosalie J. Teaching and Learning America's Christian History: The Principle Approach. FACE: San Francisco, 1975, p Foundation for American Christian Education

9 IV. Supporting Documents: 1. Conscience is the Most Sacred Property, Teaching and Learning America s Christian History: the Principle Approach, Rosalie J. Slater. Pp (FACE, Who We Are, Restore the Nation) 3. (FACE, Who We Are, Founders of FACE) 4. (FACE, Who We Are, History of FACE) 5. (Trademarks) 6. Citation Guidelines of the Foundation for American Christian Education (Available from FACE) 7. Articles of Incorporation of the Foundation for American Christian Education (Available from FACE) Foundation for American Christian Education