. TIMELINE ON CORPORATE PERSONHOOD
1791: The First Amendment is ratified, providing for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and peoples’
rights to assemble and petition the government.1 The Framers also are clear, in various writings, of their mistrust of self-interested corporate power.2
1819: In Dartmouth College v. Woodward, the Supreme Court determines that corporations are protected by
the Contracts Clause of the Constitution.3 Corporation is merely a state-created, artificial “creature of law” that does not possess inalienable human rights under the Constitution, but rather “only those properties which the charter of creation confers upon it.”4 Pre-Civil War: Court decisions confirm that while corporations have limited constitutional protection related to their rights conferred by the state in their charters, individual citizens’ substantive rights do not extend to corporations. Corporations are subject to stringent regulations.6
1870s: Advocates begin disseminating the novel theories that corporations have inherent constitutional
rights, and business activities should be shielded against state regulation.7
1880s and 1890s: The Pendleton Act of 1883 enacts the modern civil-service system and marks the end
of the “spoils system,” under which government jobs were a source of partisan political patronage and campaign funding.8
In its aftermath, corporate leaders and corporations’ own coffers become a major source of
...ing from bankers and other large corporate interests.9
1886: The doctrine of corporate personhood is first suggested in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Co. A California railroad tax is challenged based on an assertion of Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection rights.10 The Supreme Court rules in favor of the railroad based on narrow state-law grounds.11 However, the court reporter adds a footnote to the opinion noting that, during oral arguments, the Chief Justice said the justices did not wish to hear argument about whether the Equal Protection Clause applied to corporations because “[w]e are all of the opinion that it does.”12
1897: Citing Santa Clara, the Court expressly recognizes that “corporations are persons within the provisions of the fourteenth amendment,” declaring it “well settled” law and striking down, on equal protection grounds, a state statute requiring railroad defendants to pay attorneys’ fees for certain winning plaintiffs.13
Other decisions this year hold unconstitutional a state statute permitting the condemnation of private railroad property as violating the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause via the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due
Process Clause,14 and a regulation that violated a corporation’s “liberty to contract,” protected by substantive due process...
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Basically little by little the synthetic artificial construct encroached on the rights of the people and muscled its way in. But what I know, but do not have the time to research and show you now is that a substantial turn in favor of corporation personhood was decided on perjured testimony to the Supreme Court. There is some evidence that some of the justices knew this was false testimony and therefore declined the case until they retired. |
