I’m not generally concerned, when it comes to Constitutional matters, what the Framers intended or didn’t intend when they wrote the thing. Far as I’m concerned, they knew what they were doing when they used abstractions like “freedom”–they expected future generations to fight over just what those words meant. But I’m not a member of the Supreme Court who claims that original intent is the end-all and be-all of any debate. I can also look at myself in the mirror and not hate what I see.
Which is my roundabout way of saying you should read this short interview with a historian who read the now infamous Citizens United decision which overturned over a century of established law on the personhood of corporations. Seems the Framers didn’t trust corporations either. They weren’t dummies, those guys.
2 responses
The personhood of corporations wasn’t under consideration in Citizens United.
The issue in Citizens United was whether the First Amendment Free Speech Clause precluded the government from prohibiting certain organizations of citizens from engaging in political speech.
Citizens United is a landmark free speech case. Anyone interested in learning about it should visit http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission. There you will find the opinion, the merit briefs, the amici briefs, as well quality analysis.
Your first statement is accurate only if you mean that the Citizens United case was not going to determine whether or not corporations are legally persons. However, corporate personhood was largely seen as being very limited, especially as far as free speech rights were concerned, until the Citizens United case was decided. I suppose I might have worded my second-to-last sentence a bit more artfully, but the main point is the same–the current Supreme Court overturned more than a century’s worth of precedent in order to make the decision they did, and the Originalists on the Court cannot honestly turn to the Framers to back them up on their decision. Their decision was outcome-based–they found the way they wanted to rule and made an argument to fit it. And I really don’t have an issue with that on its own. I do find it hypocritical, however, when Scalia et al criticize their fellow justices for doing that very thing when a decision goes against them, but turn to it when it suits them.
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