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 the rights for people. Rights 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 any word in the Constitution is looked up and defined, multiple definitions may be applied. However, if we start with the basic understanding of words and their definitions, with the dictionaries available when the writing of the Constitution occurred, and present day ones, the elimination of a lot of unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding would result in the meaning of our constitution. This would prevent most convolutions of it and insure the protections under this sacred document be upheld far more easily than appears currently. 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 as Limited Liability Companies, Limited Liability Partnerships, Foundations and Trusts can behave in many ways that people cannot, except through these secondary instruments. Without these constructed abstractions, functioning as tools for people, little could be organized and achieved in our country. Collaboration is the socio-commercial tools of progress for people, yet people create corporations, yet are not people. They are intellectual tools. Tools are man made and are to serve us, not to subjugate to an inferior quality of life. 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 through these 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 term “People” is plural and may infer a group of individuals, as organized through a corporate entity. Is it not slippery to imply this? Perhaps this is how we got into the current situation in the United States. Corporations have more rights under the law of our nation than the people do, and are beyond the law in so man 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. It is an elected group of people to serve those named in the original Constitution. Law is logic, the “People” came first, and the ones served, not those elected in Congress. Elected persons to Congress are servants to be at the bidding of the ‘voting’ constituency, not corporations who do not have protection within the Bill of Rights. 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 agreed upon definitions when defining the words that construct this document. The Constitution is clearly a document for and by the people, not an abstract body of sophisticated construction to oppress these same people. If it were, it would be no different from the medieval nobility and royalty that controlled people at that time. This would then only be a modern corporate feudal system in that case. We must not allow something like that to exist. We could and go backwards to destroy all that our forefathers worked so hard to create and provide for us all. They gave their lives, estates and liberty for this document. Can we honor our way of life and ourselves by giving back to the people what is theirs?

Looking into the U.S. Constitution, there is only one reference to “business” and only two regarding “commerce” written there. When looking for references to the word “people”, there are 11 made. Amazingly, there are 49 occurrences to “persons” in it. It is clear that “corporations” and “industry”, without constitutional references, are not directly mentioned by the Founding Fathers, for a reason. Most creators of the Constitution were property owners. It seems that they had everything subordinate to the “people”. Quite clearly they did. There is now. Maybe they forgot and didn't think long and hard when they drafted the Constitution. No way. Why, then, do we allow this feudal relationship to exist in its present form? We have a problem then, and it is now.

“We the People...” are being forced into a difficult situation. Our “elected representatives” are focusing on being re-elected and other such nonsense. Our economic realties and futures are being affected without any corrections or balancing of the books going forward. This is simple. We are like drug addicts with our 'consumer society' and our huge carbon footprints. Our signature is all across the landscape of the planet and it is ill, quite ill. We take care of our children and ourselves when we get sick. What about our home, our planet and the people we share it with? Just because we cannot see everyone at once, doesn't men they aren't here. We are not one or two year old children that think because something can't be seen, that it doesn't exist. These problems and situations exist, they are real.

Enforce the priority of the “People” in the U.S. Constitution and those rights. Are we the same as groups and societies that want to live in the past? Take for instance the time around the last millennium; say in the year 1000 A.D.? There are those who do. What no Habeas Corpus? No, not if it goes in that direction. Consider this as a possible scenario. The current condition of corporations wanting to eliminate more and more jobs to gain more and more profit is shallow and not very intelligent. Think it through. It's not hard. These people are, in many cases, their customers. Therefore, the current business practices are... they are striving to eliminate the earning power of their customer and the source of their revenue that feeds their very existence.

There is a challenge here for American International 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 off the foundation of the economics and finance of the people. Their ability to be clients and customers of these entities, these corporations, are not provided for in the Constitution of the United States, specifically. Except it is the people, not corporations, having primary rights in the Constitution, nor the corporations. They are in second position, at best.