Once upon a time, in the state of Iowa, if your hog was ran over by a train because of lack of fencing you can get double the value of the hog killed by showing proof of this. However in 1886 Corporations weaseled their way into our constitution became people under the law. This was good news for Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway Co. who ran over hogs all the time and didn't care too much about building a fence. In 1888, Mr .Beckwith wanted to double his $24 ( the value of his hogs ) but the railroad with its shiny new personhood rights and lawyers fought back claiming this law violated their constitutional rights.
JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the Court.
" .. The validity of this law was assailed in the state court, and is assailed here, as being in conflict with the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that it deprives the railway company of property without due process of law so far as it allows a recovery of double the value of the animals killed by its trains, and in that it denies to the company the equal protection of the laws by subjecting it to a different liability for injuries committed by it from that to which all other persons are subjected. " source
Oh the irony! The corporations could now leverage the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, building power on the successful work of abolitionists who fought against slavery.
“For much of the nation’s first century, corporations were seen as a means to an end, not unlike associations. They were
‘chartered,’ or called into existence, by the states, and their charters could be revoked at any time; they were not considered > ‘persons’ until after the Civil War, when business magnates began to avail themselves of the 14th Amendment’s antidiscrimination protections.” – When is a Corporation Like a Freed Slave (Mother Jones)
In the years that followed the corporations won not only Due Process protections but many more protections.
1893: Noble v. Union River Logging the court grants Corporations Fifth Amendment protections of double jeopardy.
1906: Hale v. Henkel – the court grants Corporations Fourth Amendment protections for unreasonable search and seizure.
1978: First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti – the Court Grants First Amendment protections to corporations.
2010: Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission – the Court significantly expands the First Amendment rights of Corporations ruling that they can spend unlimited amounts on elections.
2014: This week, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby – the Court holds that for profit corporations are persons under the law which can hold religious beliefs.
Let us be very clear. Corporations are not people - they are merely legal pieces of paper. When we have a legal system that treats them as such, we are burdened with this directly and it affects all of us every single day
Since 1886 we the people lost so much we fought so hard for. read more about this
So by now if you are wondering how this affect my life, Click on this link and read concrete examples of how corporate rule (particularly the false legal doctrines of corporate constitutional rights and money as political free speech) is affecting people’s self-governance on the ground where they live.
This page is not for explaining the macro view of the larger issues (e.g. corporate privatization of public education), but rather a micro view of specific impacts of corporate power in a town, city, or county that denies the rights of local democracy (e.g. a public school that was closed and then opened as a for-profit charter school).
https://movetoamend.org/corporate-rule