The Eisenhower Socialist: One Point of View (Jefferson's) on "the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations"

(part of) You Are Here: Explorations in Search of Current Reality

My Blogs Why write 4 different blogs? Good question, but it seemed to make sense at the time. Most energy is going into The Real Truth Project

The Eisenhower Socialist ; The Real Truth Project ; What Was the Cold War? ; The Ontological Comedian

See also Tales of the Early Republic, a resource for trying to make some sense of early nineteenth century America.

(Just to clarify things a little, Eisenhower wasn't really a socialist though he could easily get labeled one today, as could Abraham Lincoln or most every other Republic president until recently. And I'm not really a socialist either.)

Sunday, June 27, 2010

One Point of View (Jefferson's) on "the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations"

Some borrowed citations from: http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2010/03/14/the-american-corporate-monster-part-2-corporate-personhood-history/

Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1816 letter to George Logan:[11]

““I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible,” Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in an 1819 case. “It possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”

Jefferson and Marshall were not friends, or in tune politically, and that seems to be reflected here.

What do you suppose Jefferson, or even the more pro-business Marshall have said about the need to protect the "Freedom of Speech" of corporations?