How would the Founding Fathers feel about corporations? If you believe what the GOP says, you’ll be shocked by the truth.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/06/09/founding-fathers/
http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/godot/blog/2010/07/jefferson-quotes
Citizens United. This is the 2010 Supreme Court case that shocked
America, influenced an election, and reversed over 100 years of campaign
finance laws. In this case, corporations were declared as people and as
such declared to have the same rights as people do. It also opened the
doors for corporations to pour unprecedented amounts of campaign
donations into elections, and what’s more, these donations can be
totally secret. Corporations can now literally and legally buy elections
and shape the government like never before in our nation’s history.
The economic world we live in today is dominated by corporations.
Huge corporations that boast massive profits and span continents. But
corporations also wield political power and are lobbying heavily to be
free from any and all government regulations that would make them
responsible and liable. Republicans have been defending corporations
since the late 1800′s and have literally gone on a history revising
crusade to show that even the founding fathers supported corporations.
But is this the case? What did the founding fathers really think about
corporations?
The origin of modern corporations can be traced all the way back to
17th century England when Queen Elizabeth I created the East India
Trading Company. At first, corporations were small, quasi government
institutions that were chartered by the crown for a specific purpose. If
corporations stepped out of line, the crown did not hesitate to revoke
their charters. Corporations generated so much revenue that they even
began taking on increased political power. Corporations were also
organized to finance large projects such as exploration, which leads us
to the American colonies.
To say that the Founding Fathers supported corporations is very absurd. Its quite the opposite in fact.
To say that the founding fathers supported corporations is very
absurd. Its quite the opposite in fact. Corporations like the East India
Trading Company were despised by the founding fathers and they were
just one reason why they chose to revolt against England. Corporations
represented the moneyed interests much like they do today and they often
wielded political power, sometimes to the point of governing a colony
all by themselves like the Massachusetts Bay Company did.
But there is more evidence that the Revolutionary generation despised
corporations. The East India Company was the largest corporation of its
day and its dominance of trade angered the colonists so much, that they
dumped the tea products it had on a ship into Boston Harbor which today
is universally known as the Boston Tea Party. At the time, in Britain,
large corporations funded elections generously and its stock was owned
by nearly everyone in parliament. The founding fathers did not think
much of these corporations that had great wealth and great influence in
government. And that is precisely why they put restrictions upon them
after the government was organized under the Constitution.
Back in the days of the Founding Fathers, corporations could only exist for 20-30 years and could only deal in one commodety.
After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by
the state as they are today. Unlike today, however, corporations were
only permitted to exist 20 or 30 years and could only deal in one
commodity, could not hold stock in other companies, and their property
holdings were limited to what they needed to accomplish their business
goals. And perhaps the most important facet of all this is that most
states in the early days of the nation had laws on the books that made
any political contribution by corporations a criminal offense. When you
think about it, the regulations imposed on corporations in the early
days of America were far harsher than they are now. That is hardly proof
that the founding fathers supported corporations. In fact its quite the
opposite. The corporate entity was so restrictive that many of
America’s corporate giants set up their entities to avoid the corporate
restrictions. For example, Andrew Carnegie set up his steel company as a
limited partnership and John D. Rockefeller set up his Standard Oil
company as a trust which would later be rightfully busted up into
smaller companies by Theodore Roosevelt.
For those who need more evidence, how about statements from the
founding fathers themselves. As we all know, big banks are also
considered corporations and here is what Thomas Jefferson thought about
them. In an 1802 letter to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin, Jefferson
said,
“If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by
deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them
(around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until
their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers
conquered.”
Thomas Jefferson, one of the most prominent founding fathers, also said this in 1816,
“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy
of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our
government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our
country.”
Jefferson wasn’t the only one of the founding fathers to make statements about corporations. John Adams also had an opinion.
“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality,
tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can
have done or ever will do good.”
These statements make it pretty clear that corporations were not
trusted by the founding fathers. The founding fathers knew that huge
corporations only preyed upon the people. But as the founding generation
began to fade away, corporations began using their power to gain
political favor and eventually that political favor would turn into
political power. And corporations would take advantage of a war to do
it. As the Civil War raged across the land, corporations made an effort
to take advantage of the situation, selling products at high prices,
especially to the government. Corporations even sold to both sides
throughout the war. Basically, corporations proved even then that they
had no allegiance to any country when great profits were at stake.
Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican to be President also had plenty to
say about corporations…
Abraham Lincoln — one of our great presidents, though not one of the founding fathers, said:
“The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace
and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are
more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more
selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who
question their methods or throw light upon their 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.”
And in a November 21, 1864 letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Lincoln wrote,
“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 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.”
Unfortunately, Lincoln’s suspicions were anything but groundless.
They were in fact, prophetic. After the Civil War, corporations began
aligning themselves with Republican politicians, who proved themselves
to be up to the task of helping corporations gain more power.
Corporations had free reign and total power over its workforce and could
sell virtually anything they wanted even if the product was a bad one.
Corporations treated workers like slaves. Wages were extremely low.
Workers received no benefits, no vacation days, no health insurance, no
workers compensation. President Grover Cleveland witnessed how
corporations treated its labor force and had this to say in 1888,
“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we
discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while
the citizen is struggling far in the rear, or is trampled beneath an
iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained
creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming
the people’s masters.”
Since the days of the Founding Fathers, corporations kept getting bigger and bigger.
To put it bluntly, corporations didn’t care about its workers or the
people who bought their products. The only rule of the game was to make
as much profit as possible, no matter what. As the 19th century ended
and the 20th century began, corporations were getting bigger and bigger.
Many began buying up smaller companies, becoming monopolies that
controlled whole industries. This practice eliminated competition and as
a result, prices had skyrocketed and no one could challenge them. That
was, until Theodore Roosevelt became the President. Theodore Roosevelt
did not hate corporations. He simply wanted them to treat workers how
they deserved to be treated and to serve the public faithfully and
honestly. He believed in honest competition and fair prices. Roosevelt
believed that government had not only a duty, but a right to regulate
corporations just as the founding generation had done, stating that,
“The great corporations which we have grown to speak of
rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State
not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control
them wherever the need of such control is shown.”
And in his State of The Union Address in 1902, Roosevelt stated his intentions toward corporations.
“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the
contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern
industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless
accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire
body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and
supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we
are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any
evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that
they shall be so handled as to serve the public good. We draw the line
against misconduct, not against wealth.”
To that end he fought for corporate regulation, he fought for fair
wages for workers, he fought for safe and healthy work environments, and
he fought to protect consumers. And the people loved him for it.
Roosevelt’s policies toward corporations were immensely popular. He
busted up so many giant corporations that he became known as a “trust
buster”. The busting up of these corporations created a lot more
competition for customers and for employees, resulting in higher wages
and lower prices and more jobs. And you know what? Corporate profits did
just fine.
Teddy never stopped fighting for workers and consumers even after his
presidency when he said this as the Progressive Party candidate for
President in 1912,
“We wish to control big business so as to secure among
other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for
the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the
businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and
charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and
stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any
more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors
or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.”
Roosevelt didn’t win the presidency in 1912, although he most
certainly would have if the Republican ticket hadn’t been split. But
Woodrow Wilson would continue the fight for workers and consumers. As
America entered the 1920′s, corporations began to gain political favors
once again as business minded Republicans controlled the White House and
Congress. Regulations were being stripped away and banks as large
entities were on the rise. These banks and corporations abused the stock
market which would lead to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.
Corporate profits had surged throughout the decade and unfair
speculation had caused economic bubbles that had to burst.
Corporate bosses also flexed their muscles over America’s legal system,
spending great deals of money to get away with nearly anything. In a
statement of sarcasm that speaks to this despicable practice, Senator
George Norris, after an industrialist was acquitted of charges of
corruption, said that “We ought to pass a law that no man worth
$100,000,000 should be tried for a crime.”
The Franklin Roosevelt era would bring new calls for corporate
regulation and corporate tax hikes. These new regulations once again
kept corporations honest and protected consumers. Workers also benefited
from these new regulations, getting fair wages, pensions, and safe
working conditions. Corporations were taxed at a rate of 91% and even
with all of that, corporations still made huge profits. Life changed
dramatically for the middle class. People had jobs with livable wages
and promise for the future. Corporations once again served a purpose as
consumers were treated fairly and the economy soared. Unemployment was
also very low. But these trends did not last long as corporate greed
would once again fuel another grab for political power. Corporations
began aligning themselves more and more with the Republican Party, and
as this relationship grew, corporations found a way to make record
profits. Throughout the 1980′s up to today, corporations have outsourced
millions of American jobs to cheap labor overseas. As a result of this,
corporate profits have broke record after record, while the
unemployment rate has jumped higher and higher. Corporate tax rates
began getting lower and lower, while more tax loopholes were created to
help corporations evade most of them altogether. When the Republican
Party took control of government in 2001, they went on a crusade on
behalf of corporations (how could they refuse, they were on the
payroll), to blame workers for economic downturns and outsourcing.
Corporations also decided to take advantage of a national tragedy. After
9/11, there was an understandable push to go to war against terrorists
hiding in Afghanistan. But corporations, as in other times of war and
tragedy, began pushing for a war against Iraq. And they got their wish.
Corporations have since made billions in war profits off of the War in
Iraq and have proven once again that profit is far more important than
the lives of soldiers. Lincoln was right. This is yet another reason why
corporations need to be put in their place. As Henry Ford once said,
“Do you want to know the cause of war? It is capitalism, greed, the
dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalist and you will sweep
war from the earth.”
Republicans are now on the verge of stripping away all corporate
regulations and worker’s rights. But it was the 2010 Citizens United
decision that really made corporations into political powers. Not only
were corporations declared to be people but corporations also now have
the power to buy elections at will. The problem with this Supreme Court
decision is that it goes against everything the founding fathers
believed in. In the Constitution, it says “We the people…”, not “We the
corporations…”. The founding fathers never addressed corporations in the
Constitution because it never occurred to them that corporations would
be perceived as people. And why would they have? Corporations don’t eat,
they don’t breathe, they don’t vote, they don’t fight battles in wars.
Remember all the limitations the founding fathers placed on corporations
mentioned earlier? In the Constitution, the founding fathers speak only
of the people. The founding fathers did not limit lifetimes of people,
nor did they outlaw a persons right to donate to political campaigns.
They also did not limit people to specific life goals like they did with
corporations. This should make it absolutely clear that the founders
never intended for corporations to be people. The decision by the
clearly activist, conservative majority of the court is an abomination
that can never be Constitutionally justified. Now it is our duty to call
on Congress to bring forward a Constitutional Amendment that bans
corporate personhood and bans corporations from interfering with
government and legal elections that only real people have the right to
donate to and vote in. Because whatever these greedy, arrogant CEO’s and
Republicans think, its the opinion of the founding generation that
matters most. Corporations are not people. People are people.
