Corporations have almost as many constitutional rights as individuals : how did this happen?

This book, which will be of interest to teachers, students and scholars of constitutional and business law, explains how, over the past 225 years, US Supreme Court decisions have enshrined corporations with fundamental constitutional rights and transformed those rights from individual freedoms to corporate entitlements. This is a fascinating story that delineates which fundamental constitutional rights accorded to individuals have been extended to corporations and which have not, and parses the US Supreme Court decisions extending constitutional protections to corporations. The book also shows how the views of the Founders have been altered by these decisions, and demonstrates how corporations, like individuals, have used their constitutional protections to evade government regulations. Telling this story in a clear and uncomplicated way underscores how intriguing and compelling the ebb and flow and evolution and retreat of fundamental constitutional rights is, from the time of the Founders to the twenty-first century. Table of Contents Introduction Views of the Founders Debates over Chartering First and Second Banks of the United States Treatment of Corporations in Early U.S. Supreme Court Decisions (1809-1839) Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) U.S. Supreme Court Decisions (1868-1879) Populists, Progressives and the U.S. Supreme Court The Railroad Tax Cases and County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pac. R. Co. The Lochner Era Begins Lochner Temporarily Fades Lochner’s Resuscitation Economic Liberty and the New Deal President Roosevelt Tries to Pack the U.S. Supreme Court Switch in Time That Saved the Nine. Not! The U. S. Supreme Court’s Counterattack on Lochner Corporations’ Constitutional Rights in the Middle Decades (1944-1977) Accumulating Fundamental Rights: 1978-2014 Artificial Entities, Corporate Personhood, Constitutional Purpose, and Association of Citizens Conclusion