People, not Corporations

by

John Ingram Mitchell

[ submitted at Boston University, Spring 2008 ]

The original Constitution of the United States did not mention or refer to any rights for

corporations, only rights for people. Rights that are for corporations are state based.

The Constitution did not say, “We the Corporations of the United States,...”, it was crafted with

very precise words, ones with clear meaning. When I take any word in the Constitution and

look it up, there are multiple definitions. However, if we start with a basic understanding of

words and their definitions through the use of dictionaries available when the writing of the

Constitution occurred and at the present, we would eliminate a lot of unnecessary confusion

and misunderstanding in the meaning and prevent most obstructions and insure that the

protections under this sacred document of our country are upheld far more easily than

appears at present. Obviously, this would lead a reader to accept and believe that only

people have specified rights and responsibilities, not corporations. This, sadly, is not the case

at this writing.

We find today that corporations and their many configurations functioning as Limited Liability

Companies, Limited Liability Partnerships, Foundations or Trusts can behave in many ways

that people cannot except through them. Without these constructed abstractions, very little

could be organized and achieved. Collaboration is the socio-commercial tool of progress for

people, yet these creations that have been conceived of and created by people are not

people. This being so, the rights of people, regardless of money, according to the U.S.

Constitution are not to be subordinated through unequal capacities and resources that can

and are accumulated in and through corporations or any of their various and numerous

embodiments and manifestations.

I am sure somewhere it could be argued that corporations can be defined as a person,

synthetically. It is easy to say that the Latin word “corpus” means body, though it is not a

person in the breathing, blood flowing, heart beating sort of way, which is clear to even the

simplest of minds. The the term “People” is plural and could be said to infer a group of

individuals, as organized through a corporate entity. I say this is slippery to imply and perhaps

is how we got into the current situation where Corporations have more rights under the law of

our nation than the people do, and are beyond the law in so many ways functionally.

The only reference to “business” in our Constitution is in Article 1, Section 5 where it has to do

with the processes and procedures of the Congress and what it takes to be viable as an

elected body. Though Congress is an elected body, it is not a person, nor people, per se, as

independent entities. I am unable to find or define clear designations that persons or people

are corporations, though I know a person can incorporate his or her self. I have owned a few

as property and been a shareholder of many corporations, as most citizens and non-citizens

have. I do not see how any of these can have a priority over people, realistically or

synthetically as constructed through the concepts in legal philosophy.

However, a corporation is only a body and not a person. Let us consider what a person, or

what a corporation is. Using the Merriam Webster Dictionary to get an agreed upon definition

of and The Constitution is clearly a document for and by the people, not an abstract body of

sophisticated construction to oppress those same people. If it were, it would be no different

than the medieval nobility and royalty that controlled people. This would then only be a

modern corporate feudal system, plain and simple, which we must not allow to exist, unless

we want to go backwards and destroy all that our forefathers worked so hard for and gave

their lives, estates and liberty for. Can we honor ourselves and our way of life by giving back

to the people what is theirs by law only, the precedent of preference that only the United

States Constitution provides and guarantees?

When searching through the U.S. Constitution there is only one reference to “business” and

two references to “commerce” that can be found. When looking for references to the word

“people”, there are 11 such references made and only 49 references to the word “persons”. It

is clear that “corporations” and “industry” with no references are subordinate to “people”,

quite clearly. Why then do we allow this feudal relationship to exist in its present form? We

allow, for example, Companies to... We have a problem then,

and it is now.

“We the People...” are being forced into a difficult situation that our “elected representatives”

are focusing on getting re-elected and other such nonsense and our economic realties and

futures are being affected without any corrections or balancing of the books going forward.

This is pretty simple. We are like drug addicts with our consumer society and our huge carbon

footprints across the landscape of a planet that is ill, quite ill. We take care of ourselves and

our children when we get sick. What about our home, our planet and the people we share it

with? Just because we can not see everyone at once, dose not men they are not here. We

are not one to two year old children that think because something cannot be seen, that it

does not exist. These problems and these situations exist, it is real.

Enforce the priority of the “People” in the U.S. Constitution and those rights for the “People”or

are we the same as some groups and societies today that want to live in the past, say the

time around the last millennium in the year 1000 A.D.? What no Habeas Corpus? No, not if it

goes in that direction. Consider this then if you as I conclude with this possible scenario. The

current condition of corporations wanting to eliminate more and more people to gain more and

more profit while these very same people are in fact in many cases their customers. So, the

current business practices are such , that they are striving to eliminate the earning power of

their customer and the source ultimately the revenue that feeds their very existence. I will end

this essay with a challenge to American business and the citizens of the United States, “How

are you, or we as a country of people, who own corporations going to sustain and provide for

ourselves when we cut of our very foundation, the people and their ability to be the clients and

customers of these same entities that are virtually not provided for in the Constitution of the

United States specifically.