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Do you find it difficult to distinguish business corporations from human beings? It seems hard to believe, but apparently some do. Let us think about this...
The American Declaration of Independence says,
Do you find it difficult to distinguish business corporations from human beings? It seems hard to believe, but apparently some do. Let us think about this...
The American Declaration of Independence says,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
1
The first truth self-evident to our forefathers was "that all men are created equal." Today, we would expect them to say something like "all people" instead of "all men." Did these men mean to exclude people of color (like slaves) - as sub-human - and women - as insignificant in public affairs? Did even Thomas Jefferson mean to do that? Probably, they did. Yes.
To be sure, slave-owners could feel affection, even love, for some of their slaves, but that kind of affection was to them more like their sympathy for their trusted animals than like their feeling toward other human beings. Yes, our forefathers - like John Adams - could "remember" and respect "the ladies," but they surely thought that public affairs (especially war, which they were at that time promoting) was a realm for men only.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the supreme law of our land, the U. S. Constitution, puts to right one part of this central sentence in the Declaration by stating:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
American slaves had already been emancipated when this amendment was ratified, so when it was, ex-slaves and other men of color were hereby ordered to be treated like everyone else.
Later, the Nineteenth Amendment set straight the second part of the Declaration's central sentence by saying:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Women may not be prevented from voting, because they are citizens. Women, like men of color, will be treated like everyone else. So, whatever our forefathers may have intended by saying, "All men are created equal," we have known since 1920 that both all men and all women are equal under U. S. law.
Thus, today we would read the Declaration's central sentence as though it said, "All human individuals ( or 'All people') are created equal, [and] ...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." And, of course, other rights - many of them addressed in the first eight amendments to the Constitution - are not innate but are granted to all citizens, not by the Creator but by the laws adopted by legislatures.
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Business corporations are not "human individuals"; they are not "people." That truth must be as "evident" as those truths referred to in the Declaration. So, whatever "rights" corporations may have, they are not endowed in them by a divine Creator. Corporations' rights are granted by law (if indeed corporations may be properly said to "have rights" at all).
Nor are corporations, of course, citizens. No one has ever suggested that corporations should be allowed to vote, for instance.
Now, as we know, the first amendments of the Constitution, or the "Bill of Rights," confer fundamental rights on U. S. citizens. These include:
Now, as we know, the first amendments of the Constitution, or the "Bill of Rights," confer fundamental rights on U. S. citizens. These include:
the right to follow any religion of one's choice
the right to speak one's mind without danger of legal punishment
the right of the press to do the same
the people's right to meet
the right to petition the government for redress of a grievance
the right to own firearms (reference is made to the need for militias)
the right to say No to an order to house soldiers in your home
and
in amendments 6, 7, and 8, a significant number of rights related to allegations of crime: such as the right to be tried by a jury of one's peers, the right not to have your privacy invaded by government officers unless ordered to do so by a court, protection against cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a speedy trial, and so on.
These rights are granted to citizens by the U. S. Constitution. Additional rights may be granted by federal laws, such as patent laws or laws relating to interstate commerce, or so long as they do not conflict with federal law, by specific states' laws, such as the right to marry or to operate a school.
3
Corporations come into existence for a wide variety of reasons, but they would not exist if they did not have some legal rights, implied if not expressly stated. All corporations may enter into contracts, for instance, such as renting or owning a building, and they are legally bound to fulfill the obligations they take on through contracts. A corporation may own property, of course, and it would be against the law for anyone - even government officials - to take their property without paying just compensation. Corporations may incur debt, in fact would often not exist without this privilege, and they are held responsible for their debts. Corporations are liable to be be taxed, and they may be sued (for illegal discrimination against employees or customers, for example). Finally, like people corporations can be punished for breaking the law, such as by committing fraud, breaking a contract, or even manslaughter.
These corporate privileges and responsibilities are all necessary if corporations are to exist at all, and all of these particular privileges are also rights and responsibilities of human individuals.
Perhaps because these fundamental "rights" adhere both to people and to corporations, corporations are sometimes and in some ways considered "legal persons," even though they are not human beings, as the first Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court famously wrote of corporations:
“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”
Corporate charters are granted by states. Whether explicitly stated or not, some of the essential corporate rights - such as the provisions pertaining to contracts and to property, corporations' being subject to criminal law and to taxation, and their being guaranteed due process of law - are also guaranteed to citizens, that is to human individuals, by the Constitution.
On the other hand, of course, as one might assume, the Constitution also grants rights to human citizens - such as the right to vote - which are not granted to corporations.
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So, not all of the rights granted to citizens are granted to corporations. The Constitution says that "the people" elect representatives to serve in the government; it does not say "legal persons" elect representatives, nor of course does it say that corporations should do so. Some rights granted to citizens, in other words, are explicitly granted to human individuals exclusively, such as the right to keep and bear arms:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. [emphasis added]
Keeping arms is "the right of the people" (not of legal persons). "Thank goodness," we might say: imagine entering a corporate headquarters - a high rise, say, on Sixth Avenue in New York - and seeing everyone carrying a sidearm and finding the word "Armory" over a large steel door in the back, flanked by men with AK-47s!
Other provisions of rights in the Constitution, on the other hand, are stated in the passive voice, leaving it unclear whether these rights are granted exclusively to human individuals or also to "legal persons."
This is the case with what we call the right of free speech:
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech... .
Although it may seen clear to many of us that only human individuals can literally speak, this section of the first amendment does not say explicitly whose speech may not be "abridged," as the following phrase later in the same amendment does:
Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [emphasis added]
State legislatures or the President and the houses of the federal government are not prohibited by the Constitution (or anything else) from passing laws saying explicitly that certain "legal persons" do not have this right.
So, unless we want to grant corporations the right to vote - by using their resources to guarantee the election of only those who will do their bidding - then, we should push our representatives to pass a federal law saying that the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech applies not to "legal persons" but only to human individuals. Or is common sense no longer useful to the common good?
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