The Inherent Fallacy of 14th Amendment Corporate 'Citizenship'

Ever since the Supreme Court ruling on Santa Clara county v. Southern Pac. R. Co.,118 U.S. 394 - 1886, corporations have utilized this landmark case as a precedent in granting 14^th Amendment protection for corporations as a "natural person". This alleged ruling has served as a foundation for all corporate legal dealings ever since. However, the fact is that the Supreme Court ruling made no mention of corporations being granted protection under the 14^th Amendment. The actual wording of the decision was "It results that the court below might have given judgment in each case for the defendant upon the ground that the assessment, which was the foundation of the action, included property of material value which the state board was without jurisdiction to assess, and the tax levied upon which cannot, from the record, be separated from that imposed upon other property embraced in the same assessment. As the judgment can be sustained upon this ground, it is not necessary to consider any other questions raised by the pleadings and the facts found by the court.[1] It follows that there is no occasion to determine under what circumstances the plaintiffs would be entitled to judgment against a delinquent tax-payer for penalties, interest, or attorney's fees; for, if the plaintiffs are not entitled to judgment for the taxes arising out of the assessments in question, no liability for penalties, interest, or attorney's fees could result from a refusal or failure to pay such taxes. Judgment affirmed." The Justices did not se fit to discuss any of the 14^th Amendment questions due to the fact they determined neither the State of California or any of it's jurisdictions had the right to assess taxation based on land which assessment which included fences which were an improvement rather than a real asset.

The question then arises as to why there has been the longstanding interpretation that this decision was that corporations were entitled to the same protection as a "natural person" under the 14^th Amendment. There is a legal doctrine known as obiter dictum, a Latin phrase meaning "said by the way". In other words, "literally, something said [dictum] in passing [obiter] . . .", "an incidental remark or observation", or "an incidental and collateral opinion that is uttered by a judge but is not binding". In this case, the remark which has initiated the longstanding belief was not made by a judge but a Court Reporter, Bancroft Davis, a former president of Newburgh and New York Railway. Mr. Davis wrote, in the headnote of the decision, "The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does." Chief Justice Morrison Waite, in response to a letter written by Mr. Davis dated May 26, 1886[2], "I think your mem. in the California Railroad Tax cases expresses with sufficient accuracy what was said before the argument began. I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision.¹"

The 14^th Amendment, Section 1, states "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The Constitution was not written to protect the rights of corporations, but each "natural person" born or naturalized in the United States. A natural person is a human being, as opposed to an artificial, legal or juristic person, i.e., an organization that the law treats for some purposes as if it were a person distinct from its members or owner. Because of erroneous interpretation of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pac. R. Co., non-flesh and blood, amoral corporations have had equal protection under the Constitution; the powerless and vulnerable people the Constitution was intended to protect have been made more vulnerable to rich and powerful corporations!

In most Supreme Court cases their decisions are only reversible by enacting counter-indicating legislation, or by the Supreme Court re-opening the case. In the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pac. R. Co., which has set such an ignoble legal precedent, the obiter dictum interpretation, in my opinion, could be legally challenged and possibly corrected!

[1] Italics by author.

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad