rummaging

[novapsyche]

You dig through history and sometimes you find things you had no intention of discovering.

While looking for information about the legality of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus (due to this LJ exchange), I ran into the Ku Klux Act. I learned the Act was struck down, so I wondered about the composition of the Supreme Court around that time. I came across this very useful chart of Chief Justices, and found that Morrison Waite headed the court.

What a guy. He was a member of Skull and Bones. He struck down the Enforcement Act and was the one responsible for corporations being recognized legally as persons. I love how the Wiki article for him ends, though:

[David C.] Korten [in his "Life After Capitalism"] then observes, "Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history."(p.185) He goes on to point out the legal contradiction implicit in corporate personhood. A corporation is the property of it shareholders. But it is also a legal person (technically, a "legal subordinate fiction"). With such "persons" being owned by others, a condition of slavery exists which is prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.