What Did The Founding Fathers Really Think About Corporations And Their Rights? - TrueSlant

[WillyT]

What did the Founding Fathers really think about corporations and their rights?
RICK UNGAR - TrueSlant
Jan. 22 2010 - 2:21 pm

<snip>

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”

–John Adams, at the Constitutional Convention (1787)

Does this sound like a man who intended to give corporations, a legal fiction whose life exists only on paper, the right to free and unfettered speech?

The reality is that the Founding Fathers didn’t think very much of corporations or, for that matter, any of the organized moneyed interests that played so large a role in the decision to revolt against Mother England.

To understand this, it is important to understand the nature of corporations during the days when the United States was founded.

The modern corporation dates back to the early 17th century when Queen Elizabeth I created the East India Trading Company. During that time, corporations were small, quasi-government institutions chartered by the crown for a specific purpose. Not unlike today, the idea behind these organizations was to bring together investors interested in financing large projects, such as exploration. Indeed, many American colonies were originally governed by corporations, such as the Massachusetts Bay Company. We all know how well that went over.

The English monarchs kept a close eye on these organizations and did not hesitate to revoke charters if they didn’t like the way things were going. However, as the money piled up in these corporations, they began to take on increased political power.

<snip>

More: http://trueslant.com/rickungar/2010/01/22/what-did-the-founding-fathers-really-think-about-corporations-and-their-rights/

And check THIS out from Honest Abe:

The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.. corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed.

- Abraham Lincoln

:kick:

[Drale]

1. Self Delete

[WillyT]

4. Reading Is Fundamental...

The modern corporation dates back to the early 17th century when Queen Elizabeth I created the East India Trading Company. During that time, corporations were small, quasi-government institutions chartered by the crown for a specific purpose. Not unlike today, the idea behind these organizations was to bring together investors interested in financing large projects, such as exploration. Indeed, many American colonies were originally governed by corporations, such as the Massachusetts Bay Company. We all know how well that went over.

And...

After the nation’s founding, corporations were, as they are today, the result of charters granted by the state. However, unlike today, they were limited in how long they were permitted to exist (typically 20 or 30 years), only permitted to deal in one commodity, they could not own shares in other corporations, and their property holdings were expressly limited to what they needed to accomplish their corporate business goals.

And...

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation

:shrug:

[immune]

5. So a mere thirty years

after the ratification of the Constitution, THAT Supreme Court screwed the people with this ruling:

"In 1819, the U.S. Supreme Court granted corporations a plethora of rights they had not previously recognized or enjoyed.<14> Corporate charters were deemed "inviolable", and not subject to arbitrary amendment or abolition by state governments.<15> The Corporation as a whole was labeled an "artificial person," possessing both individuality and immortality.<16>"

(from your wiki link)

And here we are, almost two hundred years later, another generation of Citizens United by Screwedness.

[Journeyman]

2. Abraham Lincoln never made that statement. . .

The quote traces back to a political campaign from 1888 and cannot be found in the multivolume Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, which most Lincoln biographers & Civil War historians consider the basic source for Lincoln's writings. (A searchable electronic version encompassing both the Collected Works and the Supplemental volumes is available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln ).

This quote is out of character for Mr. Lincoln, too "prophetic" in its pronouncement of definite doom, and too critical of the existing social order in which he lived -- a nascent corporate society Mr. Lincoln was far too dependent upon for financial support of the war for him to risk alienating it. The Civil War cost the U.S. Treasury an astonishing amount of money every day. And much of that money came from the wealthy -- the initial tax laws of the war spared in large measure the laboring class (they were allowed to give their lives, instead). For this reason, if no other, it's impossible to believe Mr. Lincoln would pen the quote in question. He had to win the war -- the very essence of his political beliefs demanded no less -- and for him to risk it all on a few uncharacteristic words, words that furthered no discernable policy is incomprehensible. For words meant something to Mr. Lincoln, he understood their power for good as well as ill, and he chose every one with painstaking diligence.

On edit: Corrected typo

[WillyT]

3. Not So...

<snip>

Here is a sobering quote by Abe Lincoln:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)

Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

Some people expressed doubts about its authenticity, given Lincoln's work as an attorney for railroad corporations! It was an interesting job tracking it down and verifying its authenticity.

The first ref I heard for this quote was Jack London's 1908 Iron Heel. And although the quote indeed appears there (near p. 100), Jack London offered neither context nor source.

More recently, David Korten's book, When Corporations Rule the World (1995, Kumarian Press), sources the quote to Harvey Wasserman (America Born and Reborn, Macmillan, 1983, p. 89-90, 313), who in turn sources it to Paha Sapa Reports, the newspaper of the Black Hills Alliance, Rapid City, South Dakota, 4 March 1982. But given Wasserman's ties to Howard Zinn, and his status as co-founder (?) of the Liberation News Service, citing that kind of trail is like waving a red flag for the skeptics.

Fortunately, after some burrowing in the univ. library, I was able to confirm its authenticity. Here it is, with more surrounding context:

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

The passage appears in a letter from Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.

For a reliable pedigree, cite p. 40 of The Lincoln Encyclopedia, by Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY). That traces the quote's lineage to p. 954 of Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait, (Vol. 2) by Emanuel Hertz (Horace Liveright Inc, 1931, NY).

Based on about 3 hrs of research, it appears Lincoln has been extensively SANITIZED FOR OUR PROTECTION. The Hidden Lincoln; from the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon, by Emanuel Hertz (Viking Press, 1938, NY), details how Herndon (Lincoln's lifelong law partner) collected an extensive oral history and aggregated much of Lincoln's writings into a collection that served as the basis for many "authoritative" books on Lincoln.

<snip>

Link: http://www.ratical.org/corporations/Lincoln.html

:shrug:

[Journeyman]

6. "Based on about 3 hours of research. . ."

Believe what you have to believe.


Here's two popular blogs to balance that three hours of exhaustive research:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp

http://americanmissive.com/2009/03/20/did-abraham-lincoln-say-that/

[WillyT]

7. Well Then Somebody Better Tell The Internets...

because it is quoted and cited ALL OVER THE PLACE.

:shrug:

Did anybody ever produce the letter?

And most of the evidence against it seems rather circumstantial.

Is there a physical copy of this letter that has been proven to be a forgery?

Or are we supposed to just go along with, "It doesn't seem like Abe."

:shrug:

[Journeyman]

8. All kinds of sources have debunked this story. . .

you can read the two popular sites I gave links to, they'll hold to the "3 hours of research" standard. But if you want a more scholarly take, I directed you to one source in my original post.

But you'll have to believe what you have to believe.

[WillyT]

9. Either Way, You Should Check THIS Out...

I guess TIME has been going back and digitizing stuff from its past.

This is, apparently, from 1938:

THE HIDDEN LINCOLN—Edited by Emanuel Hertz—Viking ($5).

William Herndon's life of Lincoln is one of the great neglected books of U. S. literature. It belongs with the best biographies by virtue of its accuracy, its almost unique tone that manages to combine veneration for a great man with shrewd understanding of a human being. But in addition to these qualities, Herndon's Lincoln is a document as essentially American as Whitman's poems, not only in its grasp of the tough frontier world in which Lincoln grew, but in its belief in U. S. democracy, its recognition of democracy's weaknesses, its sturdy faith in the common people.

But like Leaves of Grass, Herndon's Life of Lincoln has had a bitter literary history. Herndon, who had been Lincoln's law partner in Springfield for 22 years, began collecting his biographical material immediately after Lincoln's assassination. As monumental books on Lincoln appeared—Lamon & Black's outspoken Life, the ten-volume study of Nicolay & John Hay—Herndon read them eagerly but shook his head because the figures they presented were not the Lincoln he knew.

Lincoln was a man, Herndon wrote again & again, a great man, a noble man, but also a human being, ambitious, shrewd, successful, passionate, with a man's share of disappointments, of humiliations, of unhappy love affairs, and with more than most men's share of melancholy. He was a foolish father, a browbeaten husband, at once sentimental and hard; a secretive man with his human share of stupidities and perplexities, his career marked, like all men's, with its broken friendships and its grotesque blunders. The Lincoln Herndon knew was a thoughtful, dry man whose wife's temper was a scandal to the town; a law partner who brought his mean children to the office where they tore up the papers and urinated or the floor uncorrected; a practical politician who set out coldly to destroy Douglas when he saw Douglas as his rival for leadership of the West; a great talker who would start to work but waste his time telling stories and then walk home silently to a scolding wife. But he was also a local politician for whom great things had always been predicted, who was honest, picturesque, wise, extraordinary in his generosity and in his devotion to his tasks. This was the Lincoln Herndon knew, and the man he could not find in any book.

And ends with this...

Told for the first time in The Hidden Lincoln is the story of how Robert Lincoln in 1897 was found in his home in Manchester, Vt. burning his father's papers and letters. A friend tried to dissuade him, could not, hurriedly called Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, who after "a most earnest discussion of the whole subject" persuaded Robert Lincoln to deposit the remainder in the Library of Congress. There they remain, not to be opened until 1947.

Link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,848865-1,00.html

Maybe that's how Robert Lincoln knows the letter doesn't exist...

:wow:

:shrug:

[Trajan]

11. That quote is everywhere attributed to Abe ....

I have yet to find a single statement that supports your assertion that Lincoln did NOT write this ....

I am also not able to find irrefutable evidence that he DID say it ....

The attribution to Lincoln is all over the web .... except the link you provided ....

Interesting ...

[PufPuf23]

10. Regardless of what exactly Lincoln may or not have said or written ...

the development of the power of the corporation has expanded at the expense of the individual.

Ideologically and in recognition of the incrementalism of progressive and liberal history, corporations have achieved political power and economic dominance over the People counter to longterm ecological and human benefit.

The corporation lacks metaphorical soul and empathy for life.

[grantcart]

12. The same opinion they had of airplanes.

Corporations with public stock to be purchased by individual investors did not become a large practice until the 19th century and the only one left was Madison and well he loved him.

A better example is to point out that Benjamin Franklin invented the lighting rod in order to spare towns of mass burnings that were becoming more and more common as the country developed its urban areas. Franklin refused to take out a patent on it and insisted that lighting rods be made available cheaply for the common good. Of course writing about them in his almanac made it a must read and a huge seller making him wealthy.