After the Constitution had been completed, some of us objected that there was no Bill of Rights. I wrote from France to James Madison, and sent a list of what I felt should be in a Bill of Rights amended to the Constitution. This included two amendments that were not accepted, that there be no standing army, and no monopolies. Turns out we have needed a standing army, but do we need monopolies? We have tried to guard against monopolies ever since, through legislation and court cases, but monopolies of corporate power and influence have evolved nevertheless.

 We intended that the Bill of Rights would apply only to individual citizens, not to corporations. We already knew that corporations such as the East India Company wielded much more power than did individual citizens, and the practices of that company were responsible for much of our discontent with England . We certainly did not think powerful corporations needed or deserved the same basic human rights as did persons. While we did not include the right to be free from monopolies in the Bill of Rights, we certainly did not in any way define corporations as persons, and thus we did not include them as beneficiaries of the protections within the Bill of Rights.

 Throughout the middle and latter decades of the 1800s, several corporations tried to bring court cases that would allow them to be considered to be persons. None were successful until the Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1886. The railroad contended that they were being taxed unequally for their fences. The phrase in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” was used as one of the arguments for corporations to have the same rights as real persons. And then the Fourteenth Amendment was used in the argument to say that a State could not deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In other words, ever since the Santa Clara decision in favor of the rights of Southern Pacific Railroad, you and I and giant corporations are all equal under the law, since they are now persons too, covered under the Bill of Rights. That was a big change for our country and the world.

 Once corporations obtained the rights of persons, the scales tipped towards them, for how can an individual, or even a group of individuals, or even a government, wield power against the most pervasive and dominating corporations, particularly when the bottom line for nearly all of them is profit. As with people, when making money is the driving force behind actions, other values we cherish go by the wayside.

 According to author Thom Hartmann (Unequal Protection, 2002), corporations have successfully asserted the powers that came from their newfound rights as persons. For example, they have used their free speech rights to be able now to lobby and give money to politicians. They have used their right of privacy to block unannounced safety inspections by OSHA, and they have prevented EPA inspections of chemical factories. They have used their personhood rights to move into markets and geographical regions where they are not welcome. 

 Surprisingly, Hartmann has discovered that the Supreme Court did not actually say in their Santa Clara decision of 1886 that corporations are persons, since that specific claim of corporate personhood appeared only in the Headnote (introduction), not in the main body of the Court’s decision. The Headnote was written by the court reporter, not by the Justices, so it is not law. Hartmann is attempting to spread this information with the hope of somehow reversing the acceptance of personhood for corporations, probably through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

 I think the possibility of stripping corporations of their personhood is unlikely. Perhaps we should focus on how we expect corporations to behave as persons. Personhood for corporations is not a problem if they are serving a greater good, not only profit. Whether the person is an individual or a corporation, both the goal and behavior count. We need love for others, manifested as specific actions and policies in corporations, organizations, governments, and individuals.

 We have given corporations the rights of individual citizens, but we have not simultaneously expected them to use those rights for the good of all. We have allowed them to use the Declaration of Independence and the amended Constitution, both of which are intended to define and protect and inspire democracy, to instead create structures that are among the least democratic institutions in existence today. Corporations are often run autocratically, without sufficient regard for the rights and needs of the workers, with an ever-widening chasm between the pay given to workers and the bosses, with arrogance in ownership that is sometimes guided completely by profit. As persons, many of our giant corporations are anti-democratic, anti-social, uncaring; just the type of persons none of us want to be. 

 William Greider (The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, 2003) says there is a better way for corporations to behave, and he gives examples of a more caring and democratic approach. He shows that reformers can be found in conservative business managers and small-town civic leaders, social agitators and ecologists, labor leaders and farmers. There are now more corporations where workers are becoming owners, pension funds are withdrawing their capital from polluters, small companies are learning how to operate profitably while caring for employees and the environment.

 As persons, most of us really do try to be loving. We try to uphold the best family and community values in our interactions with friends and those we work with, those who serve us in stores, and sometimes even with our perceived enemies. We want to be loved, and we understand that this requires us to act lovingly toward others. We look for practical ways for our love to be manifested in the world.

 If society must accept corporations as persons, then let us expect no less of them than we expect of ourselves. Since they have so enthusiastically promoted themselves as persons over the past century, it is high time for more of them to show their kinder, gentler and more forward-looking, personable side.

                                          Sincerely, Thomas Jefferson

(as imagined/interpreted by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D., Charlottesville , VA.    email: Thansen103@aol.com)