How exactly did corporations come to be understood as "People" bestowed with the most fundamental constitutional rights? The answer can be found in a bizarre-even farcical-series of lawsuits over 130 years ago involving a lawyer who lied to the Supreme Court, an ethically challenged justice, and one of the most powerful corporations of the day.
The justices held onto the case for three years without ever issuing a decision, until Southern Pacific unexpectedly settled the case.
Shortly after, another case from Southern Pacific reached the Supreme Court, raising the exact same legal question.
The reporter in the 1880s was J.C. Bancroft Davis, whose wildly inaccurate summary of the Southern Pacific case said that the Court had ruled that "Corporations are persons within the Fourteenth Amendment." Whether his summary was an error or something more nefarious-Davis had once been the president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company-will likely never be known.
In the following years, the case would be cited over and over by courts across the nation, including the Supreme Court, for deciding that corporations had rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The faux precedent in the Southern Pacific case would go on to be used by a Supreme Court that in the early 20th century became famous for striking down numerous economic regulations, including federal child-labor laws, zoning laws, and wage-and-hour laws.
The day back in 1882 when the Supreme Court first heard Roscoe Conkling's argument, the New-York Daily Tribune featured a story on the case with a headline that would turn out to be prophetic: "Civil Rights of Corporations." Indeed, in a feat of deceitful legal alchemy, Southern Pacific and its wily legal team had, with the help of an audacious Supreme Court justice, set up the Fourteenth Amendment to be more of a bulwark for the rights of businesses than the rights of minorities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852/
The justices held onto the case for three years without ever issuing a decision, until Southern Pacific unexpectedly settled the case.
Shortly after, another case from Southern Pacific reached the Supreme Court, raising the exact same legal question.
The reporter in the 1880s was J.C. Bancroft Davis, whose wildly inaccurate summary of the Southern Pacific case said that the Court had ruled that "Corporations are persons within the Fourteenth Amendment." Whether his summary was an error or something more nefarious-Davis had once been the president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company-will likely never be known.
In the following years, the case would be cited over and over by courts across the nation, including the Supreme Court, for deciding that corporations had rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The faux precedent in the Southern Pacific case would go on to be used by a Supreme Court that in the early 20th century became famous for striking down numerous economic regulations, including federal child-labor laws, zoning laws, and wage-and-hour laws.
The day back in 1882 when the Supreme Court first heard Roscoe Conkling's argument, the New-York Daily Tribune featured a story on the case with a headline that would turn out to be prophetic: "Civil Rights of Corporations." Indeed, in a feat of deceitful legal alchemy, Southern Pacific and its wily legal team had, with the help of an audacious Supreme Court justice, set up the Fourteenth Amendment to be more of a bulwark for the rights of businesses than the rights of minorities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852/
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