> > > >>> 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?
>
> according to James Allen, congressional members John Bingham (prominent
> railroad lawyer) and Roscoe Conkling (successful corporate counsel)
> deliberately framed the wording of the "due process" clause to protect
> corporations...
>
> Allen indicates that the meaning was not generally realized at the time,
> but he notes that Bingham and Conkling, both members of the Committee
> on Reconstruction, eventually went public with their admissions, the
> former in a congressional speech and the latter while arguing a tax case
> before the US Supreme Court...
>
> (_Reconstruction: The Battle for Democracy_, Int'l Pub., 1937, pp. 83-84)
This is the interpretation which the article I referred to was specfically concerned with refuting. It allowed them to make an "orginal intent" argument. The article I referred to was concerned to show why this argument is fallacious.
Fresh off reading (and about to review) Mark Fenster's "Conspiracy Theories", I'm especially sensitive to the dangers of imputing too much power and cunning to individuals and coteries, when the real work is done by deeply inculcated ideology.
The trick in this case was an ideological outlook which made the reading of "corporation" as "person" not just plausible, but natural.
If one really understands the fundamental importance of this ideology, then the urge to find particularly nefarious machinations is relieved somewhat, and a more clear-eyed investigation of what actually transpired becomes possible.
The version which plays up the nefarious angle the best is also the one which STRENGTHENS the arguments and ENHANCES the reputed intelligence of those same nefarious actors. Is this really what we want to do? I think not. If it's true, then it's true. But let's give a little more thought to what's motivating the desire for this version to be true.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"