Morrison Waite - Role in Corporate Personhood Controversy

Role in Corporate Personhood Controversy

Justice Waite's remark during a Fourteenth Amendment case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), inserted dictum in the headnotes by court reporter John Chandler Bancroft Davis, may be the original basis for the recognition of corporations having the legal rights of a person: "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 the opinion that it does." See Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which was decided in 2010.

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