How the USA Was Stolen by the D.C. Corporation-How Our Constitution and Common Law Was Replaced by Maritime Law and How Every US Citizen Was Enslaved. Hardcore Documented Proof

How the USA Was Stolen by the D.C. Corporation-How Our Constitution and Common Law Was Replaced by Maritime Law and How Every US Citizen Was Enslaved. Hardcore Documented Proof

THE SECRET POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ALL LAWS AND COURTS ARE ILLEGAL, BASED UPON FRAUDULENT JURISDICTION AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL STATUTES 

D.C. Corporate Law vs Constitutional Law. How Corporations Have Replaced Constitutional Government Courts Jurisdictions

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the U.S.

GLOBAL PLUTOCRACY AND FASCIT MEGA-CORPORATIONS HIGHJACKING OF WORLD GOVERNMENTS

The Act of 1871 – Two Constitutions – The U.S. turned into a Corporation – District of Columbia D.C

US Run by Secret Corporate Masters Since 1933

THE 14TH AMMENDMENT DID NOT FREE THE SLAVES – IT MADE EVERY CITIZEN A SLAVE

Babylonian Slave Driving Techniques Have Been Weaponized Against American Citizens

U.S. Corporations Have Violated Constitutional Restraints and Have Illegally Usurped Power by Fraudulent Claims that “Corporations are Citizens”

Corporations Have Run Amok, Violation Anti-Trust Laws and Have Become Complete Monopolies

Fascist Mega Corporations are Taking Over Our Government Through Public Private Partnerships 

AMERICAS TRUE SECRET POLITICAL HISTORY IS MORE SHOCKING THAN MOST COULD EVER BELIEVE

@OratorBlog  Sunday, February 27, 2022

 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INC. The Corporation Nation, A Documentary By Clint Richardson (2010) 

by Clint Richardson (See Link for Full Text)
https://archive.org/details/the_corporation_nation_2010_wakeup
The Corporation Nation is the United States of America, U.S. Incorporated.

The United States is comprised of over 185,000 incorporated state, county, city, town, municipality, district, councils, school district, pension fund, enterprise operation, lottery, alcohol monopoly, and many other private and for-profit corporations, which have mistakenly been called our “representative government”.

The hidden wealth and investment totals for all of these “collective” 185,000 corporations (governments), when added together, equate to well over 100 trillion dollars, over 36 trillion in just pension fund investment assets.

A trillion dollars is a million, million.

With these investments, the government owns controlling ownership interest in all Fortune 500 companies, most major domestic and international companies, and most of everything you see around you. Malls, mini-malls, strip-malls, golf courses, movie theaters, etc…

Federal lands include about 87% of all state land, 97% of Utah land, 95% of Nevada, etc…

This is all easily verifiable by looking at the general accounting system of government, as required by federal law, called the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, or CAFR.

“The Corporation Nation” documentary proves all of this without a shadow of a doubt.

D.C. Corporate Law vs Constitutional Law. How Corporations Have Replaced Constitutional Government Courts Jurisdictions
Mirrored from HATSTRUTH on Telegram:
https://t.me/HATSTRUTH

The Act of 1871 – Two Constitutions – The U.S. turned into a Corporation – District of Columbia D.C
Two Constitutions in the United States. 1st was suspended in favor of a Vatican Corporation in 1871 vatican_bank_meeting Pope meeting with the board of directors of The Vatican Bank Since 1871 the United States president and the United States Congress has been playing politics under a different set of rules and policies. The American people do not know that there are two Constitutions in the United States. The first penned by the leaders of the newly independent states of the United States in 1776. On July 4, 1776, the people claimed their independence from Britain and Democracy was born. And for 95 years the United States people were free and independent. That freedom ended in 1871 when the original “Constitution for the United States for America” was changed to the “THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”. The Congress realized that the country was in dire financial straits, so they made a financial deal with the devil – international bankers — (in those days, the Rothschilds of London ) thereby incurring a DEBT to said bankers. The conniving international bankers were not about to lend the floundering nation any money without some serious stipulations. So, they devised a way of taking back control of the United States and thus, the Act of 1871 was passed. With no constitutional authority to do so, Congress created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia. With the passage of “the Act of 1871” a city state (a state within a state) called the District of Columbia located on 10 sq miles of land in the heart of Washington was formed with its own flag and its own independent constitution

GLOBAL PLUTOCRACY AND FASCIT MEGA-CORPORATIONS HIGHJACKING OF WORLD GOVERNMENTS

Public Private Partnerships by Joan Veon
As Joan studied financial trends she began to notice an alignment indicating a world currency. In 1994 she attended her first global meeting on Population Control in Cairo Egypt, initiating her first glimpse of world government. Thus beginning her second career as a credentialed, independent, International Journalist reporting for USA Radio News Network. During the next 16 years Joan interviewed and asked key questions of prime ministers, presidents, kings, and heads of state. Joan covered over 103 international meetings, including: the G7, G8, G10, G20, and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel Switzerland; attended yearly the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland; and twice a year covered the IMF World Bank meetings. In addition, she attended UN meetings on the Free Trade Areas of the Americas, Sustainable Development, the Earth Summit, Climate Control, the International World Court, and numerous others. Following the UN conference on Sustainable Development in Istanbul Joan was compelled to write her first book “Prince Charles, the Sustainable Prince” published in 1997, followed by her second book “Global Straitjacket” in 1999. Joan founded The Women’s International Media Group, a non-profit organization, in 1998 to share her vast knowledge and understanding of world government.

Alex Jones exposes USA INC  Mar 11, 2015
US Run by Secret Corporate Masters Since 1933

THE 14TH AMMENDMENT DID NOT FREE THE SLAVES – IT MADE EVERY CITIZEN A SLAVE

[The following is excerpted from Judge Dale’s The Great American Adventure – Secrets of America.] On March 9, 1933, House Joint Resolution No. 192-10 by the 73rd Congress, was voted into law, which is the Emergency Banking Act. This Act declared the Treasury of the United States, ‘Bankrupt’, which is an impossible feat since the U. S. Treasury was secretly closed by the Congress twelve years earlier in 1921. The Emergency Banking Act succeeded in abrogating America’s gold standard and hypothecated all property found within the United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank.
All Sovereign American Citizens residing within the Republic of States suddenly and falsely were expatriated from their Sovereign American status without their knowledge or consent and their labor, souls, children, property, sweat equity and credit became the financial collateral for the public debt, which had then been converted into a Public Trust, which had been scripted after the ancient Roman Trusts.

Babylonian Slave Driving Techniques Have Been Weaponized Against American Citizens

THE GREAT AMERICAN ADVENTURE By Judge Dale retired PART I
THE GREAT AMERICAN ADVENTURE  -  SECRETS OF AMERICA
Political History, Government and Law  -  By Judge Dale, retired
PART I  -  A LESSON IN FRAUD:
Due to an historic perversion and expert mind programming labeled as, Babylonian Slave Driving Techniques, which has been adopted and employed by the United States Government, few citizens realize that America is not what they perceived it to be: 
This expose’ hopes to reveal to you the Great Adventure and some Secrets of America but not all because there are too many, such as: America is not a free or constitutional country.  Factually, it isn’t even a country!  America is a privately owned French corporation and its motive of operation, known as politics; government; courts; laws; currency and commerce are merely the bi-products of several greedy, vivid and intellectual imaginations belonging to the Royal and Elite of Europe and controlled with the aid of their foreign agents and slave drivers who act in America under the protection of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

(THE TRUE SECRET POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)

THE GREAT AMERICAN ADVENTURE  -  SECRETS OF AMERICA  FREE 94 PAGE PDF
(This is One of the Most Important Documents an American Citizen Could Ever Read)

THE GREAT AMERICAN ADVENTURE SECRETS OF AMERICA [Political history of government and law] By Judge Dale, retired [INCLUDES THE ALL IMPORTANT 'MUST READ', The Bankruptcy of America - 1933 on page 36] [Please note: images were not part of the original work, formatting has been slightly altered to---

 

The Great Deception: The Federal Reserve and the IRS
An overview of the international banking cartel's takeover of the United States. This video includes clips from Aaron Russo's "America: From Freedom to Fascism". 

How to successfully denounce your strawman.

How the Few Control the Many Using Animated Dots to Scale Visual Analysis.

The Money Masters - The Rise Of The Bankers
For a more in depth look at this criminal banking cabal watch Bill Still's amazing documentary, "The Money Masters"

Money As Debt Chapter 1 | How Money Became Worthless | Documentary
And to understand how this cabal creates 'money' watch Paul Grignon's "Money as Debt".  

Money As Debt II

Money as Debt III - Evolution Beyond Money

Who is Running America? The Bankruptcy of America, the Corporate United States and the New World Order or How the Uniform Commercial Code replaced the United States Constitution 41 Page pdf
(See Full Document for More)

(How Lawful Common Law Became Illegal-Legal Law Through British the BARR & Maritime Law)

THE SECRET OF THE SPECIAL MARITIME JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES EXPOSED 46 Page pdf:
(See Full Document for more)

THE LEGAL CRAFT -  LAWYER DECEPTIONS LAWYERS AND ATTORNEYS ARE NOT LICENSED TO PRACTICE LAW 6 Page pdf:

Articles of Incorporation – UNITED STATES CORPORATION COMPANY (1925)
(Has anyone ever given you a dirty look or called you a CONSPIRACY THEORIST when you stated The United States is a Corporation? Well, here is the PROOF

Certificate of Incorporation Internal Revenue (1933)

THE BANKERS' MANIFESTO OF 1934  From New American, February, 1934.  2Page pdf:
"Capital must protect itself in every way, through combination and through legislation. Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law, the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of wealth, under control of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an IMPERIALISM of capital to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd. Thus by discrete action we can secure for ourselves what has been generally planned and successfully accomplished." 
The Farmers Alliance and Knights of Labor organizations in the United States should be carefully watched by our trusted men, and we must take immediate steps to control these organizations in our interest or disrupt them. 
At the coming Omaha Convention to be held July 4th (1892), our men must attend and direct its movement, or else there will be set on foot such antagonism to our designs as may require force to overcome. This at the present time would be premature. We are not yet ready for such a crisis. Capital must protect itself in every possible manner through combination (conspiracy) and legislation. 
The courts must be called to our aid, debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. 
When through the process of the law, the common people have lost their homes; they will be more tractable and easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of the government applied to a central power of imperial wealth under the control of the leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. 
History repeats itself in regular cycles. This truth is well known among our principal men who are engaged in forming an imperialism of the world. While they are doing this, the people must be kept in a state of political antagonism. 
The question of tariff reform must be urged through the organization known as the Democratic Party, and the question of protection with the reciprocity must be forced to view through the Republican Party. By thus dividing voters, we can get them to expand their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to the common herd. Thus, by discrete action, we can secure all that 
has been so generously planned and successfully accomplished." 

STATE SOVERIEGNTY VS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES UNCONSTITUTIONAL POWER GRAB

Presidential Documents Executive Order 13132 of August 4, 1999 Federalism 5 Page pdf:

CORPORATIONS RULE THROUGH STAUTES

Topic 3 Replaceable Rules and the Constitution Internal governance rules - 7 Page pdf:
Legal Effect of the Internal Governance Rules
How do the internal governance rules work?
They operate as a contract. This contract is created by statute.
S140: “A company’s constitution and any replaceable rules that apply to the company have effect as a contract:
a) between the company and each member; and
b) between the company and each director and company secretary; and
c) between a member and each other member;
under which each person agrees to observe and perform… the rules so far as they apply to that person.”
Case: Eley v Positive Government Security Life Assurance Co Ltd
The company’s article of association stated that Mr Eley should be the company’s solicitor. When the company 
ceased to employ him as its solicitor, he sued to enforce the relevant article under the predecessor to s140. 
However, he failed because the court held that the statutory contract is a deemed contract only as between the 
parties referred to in the section.
Legal limitations
1) s140 is limited in that it provides for the internal governance rules to have effect as a contract only:
 between the company and each member
 between the company and each director and secretary
 between each member and each other member
Further, the contract cannot be enforced by outsiders.
2) To the extent that s140 confers rights or obligations on a member, it does so only if (and while) the person is 
a member and only in their capacity as a member.
3) A member cannot enforce compliance by the company with a procedural requirement in the internal 
governance rules where failure to comply with that requirement can validly be excused by a majority of 
members in general meeting.
4) A member’s right to enforce the internal governance rules under s140 may be limited to those of the rules 
that confer rights that are personal to the member in its capacity as such.

How Did Corporations Become People?
Citizens United, was the last in a long process, that led to corporate personhood. How long before corporations get more human rights than the average American? 
Thom Hartmann traces the routes of corporate personhood to the first Supreme Court cases creating artificial persons, to the railroads' Barons in California that lost their bid for corporate personhood. And how a small note on the paperwork that changed Citizens United forever!

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the U.S.
When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country’s founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these*:

Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company’s accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

In Europe, charters protected directors and stockholders from liability for debts and harms caused by their corporations. American legislators explicitly rejected this corporate shield. The penalty for abuse or misuse of the charter was not a plea bargain and a fine, but dissolution of the corporation.

In 1819 the U.S. Supreme Court tried to strip states of this sovereign right by overruling a lower court’s decision that allowed New Hampshire to revoke a charter granted to Dartmouth College by King George III. The Court claimed that since the charter contained no revocation clause, it could not be withdrawn. The Supreme Court’s attack on state sovereignty outraged citizens. Laws were written or re-written and new state constitutional amendments passed to circumvent the (Dartmouth College v Woodward) ruling. Over several decades starting in 1844, nineteen states amended their constitutions to make corporate charters subject to alteration or revocation by their legislatures. As late as 1855, it seemed that the Supreme Court had gotten the peoples’ message when in Dodge v. Woolsey it reaffirmed states’ powers over “artificial bodies.”

But the men running corporations pressed on. Contests over charter were battles to control labor, resources, community rights, and political sovereignty. More and more frequently, corporations were abusing their charters to become conglomerates and trusts. They converted the nation’s resources and treasures into private fortunes, creating factory systems and company towns. Political power began flowing to absentee owners, rather than community-rooted enterprises.

The industrial age forced a nation of farmers to become wage earners, and they became fearful of unemployment–a new fear that corporations quickly learned to exploit. Company towns arose. and blacklists of labor organizers and workers who spoke up for their rights became common. When workers began to organize, industrialists and bankers hired private armies to keep them in line — sometimes by killing key leaders. They bought newspapers to paint businessmen as heroes and shape public opinion. Corporations bought state legislators, then announced legislators were corrupt and said scrutinizing every corporate operation wasted public resources

Government spending during the Civil War brought these corporations fantastic wealth. Corporate executives paid “borers” to infest Congress and state capitals, bribing elected and appointed officials alike. They pried loose an avalanche of government financial largesse. During this time, legislators were persuaded to give corporations limited liability, decreased citizen authority over them, and extended durations of charters.

Attempts were made to keep strong charter laws in place, but with the courts applying legal doctrines that made protection of corporations and corporate property the center of constitutional law, citizen sovereignty was undermined. As corporations grew stronger, government and the courts became easier prey. They freely reinterpreted the U.S. Constitution and transformed common law doctrines.

One of the most severe blows to citizen authority arose out of the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood,” thanks to misleading notes of a clerk, the decision subsequently was used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a “natural person.” (This story was detailed in “The Theft of Human Rights,” a chapter in Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection.)

From that point on, the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect rights of freed slaves, was used routinely to grant corporations constitutional “personhood.” Justices have since struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to protect people from corporate harm based on this illegitimate premise. Armed with these “rights,” corporations increased control over resources, jobs, commerce, politicians, judges, and the law.

A United States Congressional committee concluded in 1941, “The principal instrument of the concentration of economic power and wealth has been the corporate charter with unlimited power….”

Many U.S.-based corporations are now transnational, but the corrupted charter remains the legal basis for their existence. At Reclaim Democracy!, we believe citizens can reassert the convictions of those who struggled successfully to free us from corporate rule in the past. These changes must occur at the most fundamental level — the U.S. Constitution.

We are indebted to our friends at the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy for their research, some of which was adapted with permission for this article. Sources include:

Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation by Richard L. Grossman and Frank T. Adams
The Transformation of American Law, Volume I & Volume II by Morton J. Horwitz
Personalizing the Impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights, Carl J Mayer, Hastings Law Journal March, 1990
Visit our Corporate Personhood page for a huge library of articles exploring this topic more deeply.

Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights by Thom Hartmann

SPECIAL FEATURE
This special features covers the book "Unequal Protection", by Thom Hartmann

FEATURE INDEX
Introduction to Unequal Protection
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/introduction
Reviews & Commentaries
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/reviews
Summary of the book
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/summary
Historical Documents
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/historical-documents
Chapter excerpts

Introduction to Unequal Protection
and an overview of corporate personhood.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/excerpt-introduction
The Boston Tea Party Revealed
America's first revolt against transnational corporate power.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/excerpt-boston-tea-party
What Was Jefferson's Dream?
And why did he oppose "corporate monopolies"?
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/excerpt-jeffersons-dream
The Theft of Human Rights
The deciding moment in American history.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/excerpt-theft
Reclaiming the Global Dream
Is democracy still possible in America and the world?
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/reclaiming

Parenthood and its impacts
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/parenthood-links
Presidents and others - and what they have to say about corporations
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/presidents
Articles, ruminations and information
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/articles
A collection of links - lots of interesting places to explore
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/links
A Resolution abolishing Corporate Personhood - which you can pass to educate your local community
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/resolution
Ordinances & Constitution - State by state                                                          

http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/ordinances

 

HOW CORPORATIONS BECAME CITIZEN
ONE OF THE BIGGEST ILLEGAL POWER GRABS IN U.S. HISTORY
The Theft of Human Rights, chapter excerpt from Unequal Protection
Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights
by Thom Hartmann
https://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/excerpt-theft

Excerpt from Unequal Protection : The Theft of Human Rights
(This is a Pivotal Point in the Enslavement of U.S. Citizens. I recommend to Read the Entire Article)
Part of the American Revolution was about to be lost, a century after it had been fought.

At the time, probably only a very few of the people involved realized that what they were about to witness could be a counterrevolution that would change life in the United States and, ultimately, the world, over the course of the following century.

**************
The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act.

Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy.

There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter. '

A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view.
-- William Jennings Bryan
address to the Ohio 1912 Constitutional Convention

********
Although the case on its face was a simple tax case, having nothing to do with due process or human rights or corporate personhood, the attorneys for the railroad nonetheless used much of their argument time to press the issue that the railroad was a 'person' and should be entitled to human rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The mystery of 1886 and Chief Justice Waite
In the decade leading up to this May day in 1886, the railroads had lost every Supreme Court case that they had brought seeking Fourteenth Amendment rights. I've searched dozens of histories of the time, representing a wide variety of viewpoints and opinions, but only two have made a serious attempt to answer the question of what happened that fateful day - and their theories clash.

No laws were passed by Congress granting that corporations should be treated the same under the constitution as living, breathing human beings, and none have been passed since then.

It was not a concept drawn from older English law.

No court decisions, state or federal, held that corporations were 'persons' instead of 'artificial persons.'

The Supreme Court did not rule, in this case or any case, on the issue of corporate personhood.

In fact, to this day there has been no Supreme Court ruling that could explain why a corporation - with its ability to continue operating forever, a legal agreement that can't be put in jail and doesn't need fresh water to drink or clean air to breathe - should be granted the same Constitutional rights our Founders explicitly fought for, died for, and granted to the very mortal human beings who are citizens of the United States, to protect them against the perils of imprisonment and suppression they'd experienced under a despot king.

But something happened in 1886, even though nobody to this day knows exactly what or why.

In arguments before the court in January, 1885, Sanderson asserted that 'corporate persons' should be treated the same as 'natural (or human) persons.'

He said, 'I believe that the clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment] in relation to equal protection means the same thing as the plain and simple yet sublime words found in our Declaration of Independence, ‘all men are created equal.’ Not equal in physical or mental power, not equal in fortune or social position, but equal before the law.’
***********
One of the railroad’s six defenses involved the Fourteenth Amendment. As it happens, since the case was decided based on the fence issue, the railroad didn’t need those extra defenses, and none of them was ever decided by the court. But one of them – related to the Fourteenth Amendment – still crept into the written record, even though the Court specifically did not rule on it.
Here’s how the matter unfolded. First the railroad’s defense.

The treatment that the railroad claimed was unfair

In the Fourteenth Amendment part of their defense, the railroad said:

That the provisions of the constitution and laws of California … are in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in so far as they require the assessment of their property at its full money value, without making deduction, as in the case of railroads [that are only] operated in one county, and of other corporations, and of natural persons, for the value of the mortgages …(Emphasis added)

The italic portions say, in essence, ‘The state is taxing us railroads on the whole value of our property, instead of deducting our mortgage the way people do. That’s not fair. Nobody else gets taxed that way.’

The implication, of course, is that the state has no right to decide that corporations get different tax rates than humans. And the railroad was using the former slaves’ Equal Protection clause (the Fourteenth Amendment) as its shield.

The legal difference between ‘artificial’ and ‘natural persons’
In the Supreme Court, cases are typically decided a year after arguments are presented, allowing the Justices time to research and prepare their written decisions. So it happened that on January 26th, 1885 (a year before the 1886 decision was handed down), Delphin M. Delmas, the attorney for Santa Clara County, made his case before the Supreme Court in exquisitely persuasive language:

The defendant claims [that the state's taxation policy]‘violates that portion of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ‘ In defending the provisions of our Constitution, permit me, in the first place, to reply to this attack made upon it, which, if tenable, would place the organic law of California in a position ridiculous to the extreme. ‘ If this be so, it is safe to say that there is hardly a State in this Union whose revenue system is not in danger of overthrow. ‘

The shield behind which [the Southern Pacific Railroad] attacks the Constitution and laws of California is the Fourteenth Amendment. It argues that the amendment guarantees to every person within the jurisdiction of the State the equal protection of the laws; that a corporation is a person; that, therefore, it must receive the same protection as that accorded to all other persons in like circumstances. ‘

To my mind, the fallacy, if I may be permitted so to term it, of the argument lies in the assumption that corporations are entitled to be governed by the laws that are applicable to natural persons. That, it is said, results from the fact that corporations are [artificial] persons, and that the last clause of the Fourteenth Amendment refers to all persons without distinction.

The defendant has been at pains to show that corporations are persons, and that being such they are entitled to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. ‘ The question is, Does that amendment place corporations on a footing of equality with individuals?

Blackstone says, ‘Persons are divided by the law into either natural persons or artificial. Natural persons are such as the God of nature formed us; artificial are such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and government, which are called corporations or bodies politic.’

This definition suggests at once that it would seem unnecessary to dwell upon, that though a corporation is a person, it is not the same kind of person as a human being, and need not of necessity – nay, in the very nature of things, cannot – enjoy all the rights of such or be governed by the same laws. When the law says, ‘Any person being of sound mind and of the age of discretion may make a will,’ or ‘any person having arrived at the age of majority may marry,’ I presume the most ardent advocate of equality of protection would hardly contend that corporations must enjoy the right of testamentary disposition or of contracting matrimony.

The equality between persons spoken of in the Fourteenth Amendment obviously means equality between persons of the same nature or class, and not quality between persons whose very natures are absolutely dissimilar – equality between human beings, if the rights of natural persons are involved; equality between corporations of the same class, if the rights of artificial persons are involved. The whole history of the Fourteenth Amendment demonstrates beyond dispute that its whole scope and object was to establish equality between men – an attainable result – and not to establish equality between natural and artificial beings – an impossible result.

The evolution of the Fourteenth Amendment began with the first Civil Rights Bill, which provided that -

”All persons born in the United States ‘are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States and such citizens of every race and color’ shall have the same right in every state and territory in the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sue, hold, and enjoy real and personal property, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by WHITE citizens.’

That this law was intended to establish equality between men in their individual capacity, and had no reference to equality between men and corporations, is too plain for argument. The law took the rights of a white citizen as the standard of measurement, and simply commanded that the rights of all other citizens, whatever their race or color, should be equal to his. ‘

At this point, Delmas cut right to the heart of the issue. Sanderson had before made his claim of the ‘secret committee’ of Congress that helped write the fourteenth amendment and meant for it to equalize corporate persons and human persons. Delmas, if his performance before the Supreme Court was consistent with his later well-documented performances in criminal courtrooms, would have been trembling in righteous indignation as he said:

Could Congress have by any possibility meant to confer upon artificial persons the same rights in the respects enumerated as were enjoyed by white citizens? Could it, for instance, have meant that a corporation should have the same right to ‘give evidence’ as a white citizen? And as to contracts, may not the state, which creates corporations, impose certain limitations upon their right or power to make contracts? ‘ Under this leveling statute was it intended to abolish the right of a state to impose terms and limits upon its own creatures? ‘

It is certain that this law has never been so understood or interpreted by any State. And if it is now so to be interpreted, what, I ask, is to become of the vast mass of legislation in all the States by which taxes, licenses, and exactions are demanded from corporations where none whatever is demanded from white citizens? ‘

‘As of the broad meaning and generous scope of the Fourteenth Amendment, I yield my fullest assent. Standing in this presence, I would not attempt to dwarf the proportions of that historic provision by seeking to restrict its beneficent operation to a particular class or race. No. The law is as broad as humanity itself.

Wherever man is found within the confines of this Union, whatever his race, religion, or color, be he Caucasian, African, or Mongolian, be he Christian, infidel, or idolater, be he white, black, or copper-colored, he may take shelter under this great law as under a shield against individual oppression in any form, individual injustice in any shape. It is a protection to all men because they are men, members of the same great family, children of the same omnipotent Creator.