Senator HATCH. I think that would be good, not for this record, but for our personal purview, and I think that anything else that you can do to help summarize the actual facts of the case, I would appreciate having for the record, in as brief a form as possible. Mr. SILEVEN. Thank you very much. [Material submitted for the record follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. EVERETT SILEVEN

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND AIZALYSIS OF CURRENT STATUS

THE SYNOPSIS BACKGROUND OF DR, EVERETT SILEVEN

Dr. Everett Sileven was born April 21, 1939 near Muskogee, Oklahoma. His father was an itinerant Baptist preacher; his mother was a fine .

Christian lady. When he was four his mother died of cancer, and he

moved with his father to California where he lived for a very short time.

He and his brother were soon adopted by an Aunt and Uncle in Missouri

by the name Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Sileven. Mr. and Mrs. Sileven were the

owners of a 6,000 acre ranch, and Everett spent his growing up years in

that area working long and hard hours in timber, cattle, and farming.

He graduated from the Houston High School, Houston, Missouri in 1957.

He attended Southwest Missouri State Teachers College; Hillsboro College

in Hillsboro, Missouri; Washington University and Southern Illinois

University, majoring in Business Administration. He worked for Ralston Purina Company in the research division and also was manager of Package

Development for ConAgra of Omaha, Nebraska. He spent a short time as manager of Package Research for the Frito Lay Company of Dallas, Texas.

Pastor Sileven entered the full time ministry In 1975 after having completed his Master of Theology and Doctorate of Theology from Faith Baptist Theological Seminary in Morgantown, Kentucky. He has Honorary Doctorates from Freedom University in Orlando, Florida and Hyles-Anderson

College in Hammond, Indiana,

Pastor Sileven is Pastor of the Faith Baptist Church in Louisville,

Nebraska, which has experienced the awesome hand of persecution by the

State of Nebraska since 1977. He has spent 157 days in jail for operating a Christian School without a license. His daughter has been subject to arrest along with seven of the parents of his church who spent 93 days in the Cass County jail in Plattsmouth, Nebraska.

Pastor Sileven is a patriot and a bellever in the free enterprise

system, constitutional government, and stands firmly on the principles

of the founding fathers. It is due to his deep concern for America

that an effort is being made to produce alternatives to the Marxist ideology being propagated in this country by founding the American Coalition of Unregistered Churches and its monthly magazine, the "Trumpet". Pastor Sileven is also a cooperating founder of the Nebraska Christian

Political Action Committee. Dr. Sileven is traveling America on a busy

speaking schedule as well as pastoring Faith Baptist Church,

SUMMARY

Religious liberty as known and protected by our founding fore

fathers, under the Constitution of the States and the United States,

no longer exists in this country. There is a growing resistance to

government encroachment upon these liberties, and unless the Congress does something substantial to restrain government from further en

croachment, it is our fear that the government will perpetrate a

"The power of the will to follow the dictates of its unrestricted choice, and to direct the external acts of the individual, without restraint, coercion, or control from other persons"

(Myer vs. State of Nebraska 438. CT. 625, 626, 262 0.5, 390.)

"The word 'liberty' denotes not merely freedom from bodily
restraint, but also the right of the individual to contract, to
engage in any of the common occipations of life, to acquire use-
ful knowledge, to marry, to establish a home, and bring up children,
to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience,
and generally to enjoy those privileges long regarded at common
law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."

(Religious liberty)

"Freedom from dictation, constraint, or control in matters affecting the conscience, religious beliefs, and the practice of religions: freedom to entertain and express any or no system of religious opinions, and to engage in or refrain fron any form of religious observance or public or private religious worship, not inconsistent with the peace and good order of society and the general welfare. See Frazee's Case, 63 Michigan 396, 30 N.W. 72, 6 AM, ST, Rep. 310: State vs. White, 64 N.H, 48, 5A, 828.

Now any liberty that requires a license is no longer a liberty.

The definition of a license is also given in Blacks law dictionary and is defined as follows: "A permission, accorded by a competent authority,

conferring the right to do some act which without such authorization

would be illegal, or would be a trespass or a tort, A pernit, granted

by the sovereign, generally for a consideratlon to a person, firm, or corporation to pursue some occupation or to carry on some business subject to regulations under the police power. A license is in no sense a contract between the state and the licensee but is a mere personal permit neither transferrable nor vendible. That would be state exrel. Cuillot vs. Central Bank and Trust Company, 143 LAP, 1053, 79 so. 857, 858.

In America, we the citizens are the sovereigns. Therefore, why is government continually trying to force licenses on us to perform those Godóziven, God-ordained, inalienable rights. If there are any licenses

to grant, then we the people would be the ones granting them to the

government officials since we are sovereigas and governnent is not the

sovereign but is the servant and agent of the people,

II, THE FOREFATHERS UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTES

Mr. William Blackstone was probably the greatest jurist of the era

of the founding of our nation. More of his commentaries were purchased in America than in England, and they were used extensively in the founding

of our nation.

I would like to quote from his commentaries as to the

understanding of a man's relationship to his God.

'Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. Consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his maker for everything it is necessary that he should be in all points conformed to his makers will. This law of God is of course superior in obligation to any other. His binding over all the globe and all countries, and in all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. Upon this foundation depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these."

On the particular subject of sovereignty of the people, I will now

quote Mr. George St. Tucker who was a famous jurist in the early 1800's in the state of Virginia. In his footnotes on Blackstone's commentaries he expounds the American Constitution on principle of government. He

speaks extensively to the sovereignty of the people and I quote,

"The American Revolution has formed a new epic in the history
of civil institutions, by reducing to practice, what, before,
had been supposed to exist only in the visionary speculations
of theoretical writers.... The world, for the fir
the annals of its inhabitants began, saw an original written
compact formed by the free and deliberate voices of individuals
diposed to unite in the same social bonds; thus exhibiting a
political phenomenon unknown to former ages. This memorable
precedent was soon followed by the far greater number of the
states of the union, and led the way to that instrument, by
which the union of the confederate states have since been com-
pleted, and in which, as we shall hereafter endeavor to show,
the sovereignty of the people, the responsibility of their
servants are principles are fundamentally, and unequivocably,
establish; in which the powers of the several branches of the
government are defined, and the excessive of them, as well in
the legislature, as in the other branches, find limits, in
which cannot be transgressed without an offending against
that greater power from whom all authority, among us is de-
rived; to wit, the people."

It is absolutely understandable by this quote that our early founding

forefathers understood that all sovereign power rested in the people of

the states. Our founding forefathers were extremely concerned about

government intervention into the freedom

of conscience and freedom of

exercise of religion. They had fled from Europe for these very reasons. Therefore they insisted on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution that would prohibit congress from making any law concerning the establishment of religion and prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This amendment simply says that congress can make no law relating to religion. The question comes, what is religion?

Many of our forefathers have suffered jall, beating, confiscation of property, fines and other harassments because they refused to take licenses, permissions, permits, etc. from local and state governments to exercise their religious practices. Included in these practices was the collection and distribution of money and property, the education of children, public worship, and many other things. It also included the care for the elderly, the sick, etc. There is no doubt that to our founding forefathers religious liberty meant not only the practice and belief of religion but the defining

for one's self what his religious beliefs and practices would be. The