14th Amendment

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Tue May 18 12:25:54 PDT 1999


Tom,

I still owe you some other research (sorry). I can look up the cite below the old fashion way (without going to Lexis-Nexis). Will get back to you.

By the way, transcripts of Supreme Court and other appellate court hearings are not as important as transcripts of trial court hearings, because appellate courts review the law, not the facts (most of the time). An appellate court hearing is not a factual hearing. There are no witnesses only legal arguments. Transcripts are important only for getting witnesses' testimony.

But maybe there is something else going on or missing. I don't know. I certainly wouldn't put it past them. I have a book saying that many of the Supreme Court justices were corporate lawyers in that period, and I wouldn't doubt that railroad lawyers influenced the drafting of the 14th Amendment, in response to Michael's question.

Charles


>>> Tom Lehman <uswa12 at lorainccc.edu> 05/18/99 03:10PM >>>
Charles, have you ever seen a transcript or written majority opinion on Santa Clara---there is some sort of an olde mystery here---missing documents or transcripts? Wouldn't it be funny if corporate law was based on a bad joke?

If you got it or can get it I would like to see it.

Your email pal,

Tom L.

Charles Brown wrote:


> _Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad Co._ 118 U.S. 394 (1886) held that corporations were "persons" within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. This was part of the beginning of the doctrine of socalled Substantive Due Process This doctrine reversed an immediately previous trend in the Supreme Court by which states were permitted to regulate businesses without limitation based on the Police Powers ( Power of the states to protect the public health, safety and welfare).
>
> The Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment (applied to the states by the 14th) is " No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." Originally this was used to void the operation of statutes that were irregularly or arbitrarily applied, a PROCEDURAL question. Under "Substantive Due Process" , "liberty" was interpreted "economic liberty" or the "liberty to contract "or to strike a bargain in the free market; it became a SUBSTANTIVE rather than procedural right, barring social legislation aimed at protecting workers and consumers from riproaring capitalism.
>
> The Substantive Due Process doctrine died with the New Deal Court, though the legal fiction of the personhood of coroporations persists. So, the legal power of Private Property is not dependent upon this combination of Substantive Due Process and the personhood of the corp, for that power of Private Property still exists in spades, based on other legal principles - for example, the Fifth Amendment "Takings Clause" , which is right after the Due Process Clause.
>
> Charles Brown
>
> >>> Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> 05/18/99 12:17PM >>>
> I have my own 14 Amendment question: Louis Hacker said that the authors of
> the amendment were railroad attorneys who were intentionally lay the
> groundwork for the eventual interpretation of corporations as people.
> Does anyone have information on that subject?
>
> Tom Lehman wrote:
>
> > Has anyone ever seen a transcript of the majority opinion in the 1886
> > ruling Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad? I understand
> > their was no minority opinion and no transcript of the proceedings
> > before the Supreme Court.
> >
> > Three or four of the Justices had Ohio connections---and their is some
> > question of wether or not they were working in their own economic
> > interest.
> >
> > Your email pal,
> >
> > Tom L.
>
> --
>
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
> Chico, CA 95929
> 530-898-5321
> fax 530-898-5901



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