(The US government makes 350 pages of new laws each day, i...)
The US government makes 350 pages of new laws each day, including directives of policy that limit what an individual may do at home alone or with consenting adults. Such laws are intended to make people safer, healthier, or more productive, but they often violate the Five Rights because they sacrifice personal choices to some presumed greater good. Directives of policy may include laws that violate the rights to privacy or free speech; laws restricting abortion or physician-assisted suicide; restrictions on gun rights; prohibitions on unhealthy foods, cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs; laws that discriminate against gays; and laws that violate property rights. Drug prohibition laws have been the most damaging. Over the past 40 years, the US population grew 50 percent while its prison population grew 1,000 percent, due mostly to antidrug laws. There are now two million Americans in jail, half of whom didn't harm, coerce, or defraud anyone. The land of the free has one twentieth of the world's population and one fifth of its prison population. Our incarceration rate is seven times that of European countries. No democracy has ever had such a large percentage of its people behind bars. Legalization of marijuana and decriminalization of other drugs would free hundreds of thousands of individuals, end prison overcrowding, and save billions of dollars now spent trying to enforce unenforceable laws. There would be less need for spying, wiretapping, and breaking down doors. Americans could stop thinking of the police as the enemy and vice-versa, permitting a renewal of respect for the Five Rights.
Philip John Schuyler was a general in the American Revolution and a United States Senator from New York. He is usually known as Philip Schuyler, while his son is usually known as Philip J. Schuyler.
Background
Philip John Schuyler was born on November 20, 1733, in Albany, New York, to Cornelia Van Cortlandt (1698–1762) and Johannes ("John") Schuyler Jr. (1697–1741), the third generation of the Dutch family in America.
Philip was related to many illustrious contemporaries, including: Peter Schuyler, a cousin who commanded the Jersey Blues; Hester Schuyler, a cousin who married William Colfax, a veteran of George Washington's Life Guards and later a general in the New Jersey militia who also commanded the Jersey Blues (William and Hester were the grandparents of Vice President and Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax); Arent Schuyler DePeyster (cousin), a noted Loyalist; Mary (Watts) Johnson, a second cousin who was a Loyalist and wife of Colonel Sir John Johnson; and Dr. John Cochran, a brother-in-law who was the Director General of the Military Hospitals of the Continental Army.
Education
Prior to his father's death on the eve of his eighth birthday, Schuyler attended the public school at Albany. Afterward, he was educated by tutors at the Van Cortlandt family estate at New Rochelle. In 1748 he began to study with Reverend Peter Strouppe at the New Rochelle French Protestant Church, where he learned French and mathematics. While he was at New Rochelle he also joined numerous trade expeditions where he met Iroquois leaders and learned to speak Mohawk.
Career
Philip Schuyler served in the Provincial Army during the Seven Years' War, first as captain and later as deputy-commissary with the rank of major, taking part in the battles of Lake George (1755), Oswego River (1756), Ticonderoga (1758) and Fort Frontenac (1758). From 1768 to 1775 he represented Albany in the New York Assembly, and he was closely associated with the Livingston family in the leadership of the Presbyterian or Whig party. He was a delegate to the second Continental Congress in May 1775, and on the 19th of June was chosen one of the four major-generals in the Continental service. Placed in command of the northern department of New York, he established headquarters at Albany, and made preparations for an invasion of Canada. Soon after the expedition started he was prostrated by rheumatic gout, and the actual command devolved upon General Richard Montgomery. Schuyler returned to Ticonderoga and later to Albany, where he spent the winter of 1775-1776 in collecting and forwarding supplies to Canada and in suppressing the Loyalists and their Indian allies in the Mohawk Valley. On the death of Montgomery and the failure to take Quebec the army retreated to Crown Point, and its commander, General John Sullivan, was superseded by General Horatio Gates. Gates claimed precedence over Schuyler and, on failing to secure recognition, intrigued to bring about Schuyler's dismissal. The controversy was taken into Congress. The necessary withdrawal of the army from Crown Point in 1776 and the evacuation of Ticonderoga in 1777 were magnified by Schuyler's enemies into a retrograde movement, and, on the 19th of August 1777, he was superseded. A court martial appointed in 1778 acquitted him on every charge. He resigned from the army in April 1779. He was a delegate from New York to the Continental Congress in 1779-1781, and state senator in 1781-1784, 1786-1790 and 1792-1797. In 1788 he joined his son-in-law Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and others in leading the movement for the ratification by New York of the Federal constitution. He served in the United States Senate as a Federalist from 1790 to 1791 and was again elected in 1797, but resigned in January 1798 on account of ill- health. He was also active for many years as Indian commissioner and surveyor-general and helped to settle the New York boundary disputes with Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. He prepared plans for the construction of a canal between the Hudson river and Lake Champlain before 1776, and, in 1792- 1796, carried to a successful conclusion a more pretentious scheme for connecting the Hudson with Lake Ontario by way of the Mohawk, Oneida Lake and the Onondaga river. He died in Albany on the 18th of November 1804.
(The US government makes 350 pages of new laws each day, i...)
Views
Quotations:
"In a police state, referencing one's rights is seen as an act of aggression. "
"Responsible people work, earn, save, invest, make things better for self & family. Lefties call that "greed. "
Membership
In 1768, Schuyler began his political career as a member of the New York Assembly, serving in that body until 1775.
Schuyler was an original member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati.
He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1780 to 1784.
Connections
In September 1755, he married Catherine Van Rensselaer at Albany. She was the daughter of Johannes van Rensselaer (1707/08–1783) and his first wife. Philip and Catherine had 15 children together, eight of whom survived to adulthood.