First, a little background:

A corporation cannot vote, it cannot perform military service, it cannot drive a car, nor can it serve jail time when it runs afoul of the law. But a corporation can donate cash to a political candidate, according to Justice Lewis Powell, because they have the same rights to free speech as does an individual. Corporations did not always have this right. Corporations gained these rights after a series of US Supreme Court decisions in the late 19th century which served to REdefine the relationship between business and the state. Those rulings shielded business from government regulation, allowing them to become the dominant economic (and some think political) organization of our time. As a result, in the 21st century the combined gross revenues of the 200 largest corporations exceeds the GDP of all but nine countries. Some would argue that corporations, who provide more lobbyists to our nation's capitol than there are representatives in the Congress, also exercise an undo influence on government itself.

The first corporations were created in the 17th century. Governments (initially those of England, Holland and Spain) chartered all corporations, giving them a specific public mission in exchange for the formal right to exist. The US was settled by many such corporations, including the Massachusetts Bay Colony (chartered in 1628) and the Dutch West India Company. Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas were governed by chartered corporations. In the infancy of mercantilism, by allowing individuals to pool their capital resources, the king made it possible to do things beyond the means of one person (and possibly of government, itself). In exchange for a charter, these corporations expanded the wealth and power of their king. They created colonies that provided raw materials and a market place for exported goods.

Then came the Enlightenment. People began to think of themselves not as subjects to be governed as so much chattel, but as individuals. Inspired by ideas speaking of "inalienable rights" to things like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", American colonists fought for their independence from a monarch. Their resistance to monarchical control was at least inspired by their resistance to corporate monopolies over their lives. The Boston Tea Party had been a protest against a trade monopoly given to the British East India Company. Another critic of corporate power and advantage expressed his feelings with a book he published in the same year the US issued its Declaration of Independence. In 1776, Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations. Smith, as most supporters of capitalist theory know, believed that human industry and resourcefulness were examples of God's favor. Wealth obtained in a free market economy was a form of natural justice. Smith, like the American colonists, did not believe that corporations were a part of this natural order. He said that large business associations limit competition, and that there was no basis to pretend that corporations were necessary to the best operation of the marketplace.

In 1787, there were less than 40 corporations in the entire United States. The Framers expressly left reference to corporations (including any supposed "rights" that they had) out of the Constitution. Chartering and regulating corporations was one of those powers relegated to the states. All states essentially treated corporations the same. That is, with quite a bit of disdain and mistrust. They were given a charter to operate by the Secretary of State of each of the states, and only within the borders of the state in which they held the charter. Rules of incorporation required them to state the one specific thing they were going to produce or service they would perform (dig canals, build bridges, construct a toll road, open a university, provide legal service, etc.), and to identify in what way it would serve the public good. The first chartered corporations were universities. The first bank wasn't chartered until 1780. The Secretary of State could revoke a charter at any time that the corporation stopped performing its proscribed business or stopped serving the public good. When the US Supreme Court ruled that the New Hampshire legislature could not revoke the charter of Dartmouth College (1819), there was a huge public outcry. All across the US, state courts and state legislatures asserted the right of the people to amend or even repeal a corporate charter.

Corporate charters were finite in time, as well. The longest any charters were granted were 40 years. Companies were not allowed to own other companies, and elected officials and members of government were prohibited from having an interest in a chartered corporation (this also made sense ... the East India Company had become heavily invested in by members of Parliament, and it was they who passed the law providing monopoly privileges to it). In exchange for incorporation, a business was granted at least 40 years of permanence, limited liability, and the right to own property.

Corporations clearly were not considered to be "people". In fact, it was (and actually continues to be) quite clear what they are: artificial creations of their owners given entity by state legislatures and the Secretary of State of each state. They were regulated and taxed. The could be sued and could sue. They were subject to law, and had to meet any restrictions placed on their charter.

The system began to break down during the War of 1812 (and previously, during the embargo of France and England). Manufactured goods from England were not available, and Americans rushed to form companies to finance new factories that would fill that market. But this created a tension – these associations were not formed to fulfill a public mission, but to create private wealth. The wealthy people who owned them sought to use the Federal government – especially the courts – to wrest their corporations from under the control of the individual states and their citizens.

Under the leadership of John Marshall, the Supreme Court took on the task of "interpreting" the Constitution. It struck down trade barriers between the states. It ruled that no state could pass a law limiting the obligation of contracts (e.g., the Georgia legislature was barred by the Supreme Court from enacting legislation that would overturn previous legislation made by a demonstrably corrupt legislature because to do so would mean canceling contracts that had been entered into in good faith). This contract ruling became the primary wedge corporate lawyers used for the next 60 years to receive favorable court rulings.

By the 1880s and 1890s, many states were beginning to see the inherent down-side of concentrated wealth and power. State after state began enacting Populist legislation aimed at regulating corporations (and the people who owned them). The US Supreme Court struck down law after law attempting to regulate the workplace and to protect collective bargaining, citing Marshall's views on the permanence of contracts.

The Supreme Court of the US in 1886 was comprised of such stalwart luminaries as Chief Justice Morris Waite, William Woods, Horace Gray, Samuel Blatchford, Stanley Matthews, Samuel Miller, Joseph Bradley, Stephen Field, and John Harlan. Most were lawyers, and the majority of them had been corporate lawyers before their appointment. These are the same guys who upheld the legality of Jim Crow laws (and subjected recently freed African-Americans to close to a century of injustice). Ironically, in one of the landmark decisions of this Court (Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896), these guys ruled that it was okay to subject blacks to "separate but equal" treatment, effectively denying the very group of people for whom the 14th Amendment was written protection under the law. These are also the guys who supposedly (beginning in 1886) codified the notion that corporations are people, and have the same rights as human beings. In fact, what they did was provide a vehicle for the wealthiest people of the country to control the economy and the government (Mark Hanna, of course, is notorious for the outright bribery of Congress)

It heard a case in 1886 – Santa Clara County (Calif) vs. Southern Pacific Railroad – that supposedly decided, "once and for all", that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same protections under the law as "natural persons". This case was but one of many that had started in the 1870s to attempt to get the Court to rule on the legal status of corporations. All of those cases referred to the 14th Amendment, and claimed that railroads – because they were "artificial persons" – could not have their property taken away (i.e., regulated) without "due process". Before 1886, not a single Court decision was willing to go out on that limb.

Read the Court settlement (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=118&invol=... ) for yourself. NO WHERE IN IT does the Court rule that corporations have the rights of an individual. The case was decided because Santa Clara County improperly assessed part of the tax SP owed on "capital improvements" in the form of fences that were not within the legal jurisdiction of the Board of Equalization to assess. However, BEFORE oral arguments were heard, Chief Justice Waite is said to have announced: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the 14th Amendment … applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

And the partial quote that I offer (above, easily found with a simple google search) may not even have been said. The fact of the matter is that this is what the Clerk wrote down and attached to the judgment. Justice Waite died within the year of a heart attack, and so was never asked whether in fact he said that.

Unfortunately for almost all Americans, that was that. Our goose was cooked, in a manner of speaking. Congress passed no law giving corporations the rights of "personhood". No Constitutional Amendment was passed. There actually has never been a Supreme Court case resolved about these so-called rights. The fact of the matter is that corporate right to shield itself is based upon a rumor, an anecdotal pre-trial statement that might not even have been said.

The other ironic point is that between 1886 and 1938 (52 years for the mathematically challenged), the 14th Amendment was used by the US Supreme Court in "less than one-half of one percent of all its rulings" to protect African-Americans, but more than fifty percent asked that those benefits be extended to corporations (Hugo Black pointed this out).

Another interesting point those of you willing to look about will discover – the Constitution of the United States (including the Bill of Rights) does not speak of the freedom of contracts. It talks of liberty and it prohibits limitations on liberty without due process.

It is time to take back our sovereignty over corporations. They may, in fact, be the most effective means of organizing business (and even this is debatable), but they are not the most effective way of governance. They are not people, but are the creations of people. They limit competition, restrict freedom within the marketplace, and place severe limitations on creativity and invention.