The United States was founded as a Slave Empire; its economy and culture was based on a legal system that not only allowed, but upheld and defended the ownership of one class of people - as property - by another. The Second Constitution guaranteed the legal protection of the slave system, and the privileged class of white property owning males, North and South, nurtured itself on a slave economy.
Opposition to slavery by Abolitionist radicals existed from the begining, but came into prominence in the 1830s. By the end of the Civil War, the slave system in the South had been abolished, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were adopted, ostensibly to create out of a Slave and Commerce Constitution - a Liberty and Rights Constitution.
But the hope of such an outcome was short-lived. The immensly enriched merchant class coopted legislatures and courts with the growing power of the corporate lobby and the appointment of corporate lawyers to the bench, and soon they succeeded in coopting the very Constitutional Amendment once thought to bestow denied rights on freed slaves. The railroad judges now sitting on the Court conspired to "find" within the language of the 14th Amendment, an artificial entity embodying the wealth and property of the new Corporate Class. And on these corporations the judges bestowed Constitutional protections, referring to corporations themselves as "persons."
Here you can read selections that discuss this remarkable and well-concealed transformation, from a Slave State to a Corporate State.
FROM A SLAVE STATE TO A CORPORATE STATE – THE CIVIL WAR as CORPORATE REVOLUTION
from James B. Weaver, A Call To Action, 1892:
"It seems strange that the legislators of the war
and reconstruction periods failed to comprehend that those who drove hard bargains and exacted cruel concessions when the Republic was in peril, were as hostile to the spirit of liberty, though not so brave, as the armed Confederates. The motto of the Confederate leader was, "Give us our slaves and a dissevered Union or we will take them by force;" while that of the money shark was, "If you do not give us our price you can perish." The slaveholder lost his human chattels and the Confederacy perished. But the tyranny of capital was not broken by the war. On the contrary it was augmented beyond measure. Surrounded by the perils of battle, the statesman of the war period made concessions, which strengthened the tyranny of capital beyond the power of the imagination to conceive. In the days of reconstruction our leaders surrendered to it without a struggle. The battle for substantial and real emancipation has yet to be fought and it is but just ahead." pp. 19-20
"The slave holding aristocracy, restricted both as to locality and influence, was destroyed by the war only to be succeeded by an infinitely more dangerous and powerful aristocracy of wealth, which now pervades every State and aspires to universal dominion. Its first conquest was the subjugation of the do minant political party of the nation, while it required the other to keep the peace, under the threat that if it did not succumb it should never come into power.
"Next it secured control of State politics, and finally found expression in a vast net work of corporations which have seized upon almost every field of labor and every department of human effort. To prevent remedial legislation they have filled the Senate of the United States with men who represent the corporations and the various phases of organized greed." pp. 23-24
"The bench, both State and National, must be supplied from eminent members of the bar, and practically all the so-called distinguished members of the profession are in the service of the corporations....That these, and kindred influences, have thus been enabled for a score of years, to exercise almost unlimited control over the Legislative and Executive branches of the Government is too well established to be denied by the intelligent and candid man. That they have made serious inroads upon every branch of our Judiciary, and are now stealthily making still <83> further and greater efforts to obtain complete and, as far as this generation is concerned, permanent control o our Court of Last resort, is a truth well known to all whose eyes and ears are open to what is going on about them. Indeed, it is believed that they have already practically accomplished their purpose." P. 82
Read more of Weaver’s comments: 1892 Populist Presidential Candidate on Corporate Piracy
Continued>>>>
http://www.celdf.org/DemocracySchool/AnOutlineoftheWeekendCurriculum/FromSlaveStatetoCorporateState/TheCivilWarasCorporateRevolution/tabid/275/Default.aspx
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