>>> Tom Lehman <uswa12 at Lorainccc.edu> 02/29/00 03:51PM >>>
At least two of the Supreme Court justices in the 1880's were former railroad corporation attorneys. The Chief Justice Morrison Waite of Toledo, Ohio and Stanley Matthews of Cincinnati, Ohio. How many other former railroad corporation attorneys sat on the Supreme Court at the time? Conflict of interest maybe? No problem, just use the 14th Amendment. And how had the composition of the Supreme Court changed between 1866 and 1886 the year of the Santa Clara decision?
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CB: Lawyers are slick enough to have two purposes in their draft of the 14A: anti-discrimination against Black people and the pro-corporate purpose Tom and Michael mention. There were two parallel purposes to the Civil War too: abolish slavery and spread industrial capitalism.
Perhaps the main significance of the 14A in the corporation vein discussed here is that it makes the due process ("procedural" due process) and the takings clauses applicable to the states, giving federal Constitutional protection to private property from states., though I imagine all state constitutions already had a takings clause. The private property of the corporations was protected by the due process clause ( of the 14th) whether or not the corps were "persons" under the equal protection clause.
The main thing about corporations is that they have the corporate veil or limited liability more than that they are "persons". A corporation can't sit at a lunch counter or be shot 41 times like a real person anyway.
CB