Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
From dKosopedia
Category: Supreme Court decisions
In 1886, the Supreme court of the United STates ruled that corporations have all of the rights of individuals, based upon the 14th amendment, which says nothing about corporations. This created the concept of corporate personhood. Since a corporation is owned by its shareholders, are they slaveholders, and does this violate the 13th amendment?
This case was in the same time period as the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases and the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, which weakened the 14th amendment as applied to individuals, so basically this case gave corporations more rights than individuals had.