Hello and welcome to a history of the United States, Episode 1944, Let Dissolve All the Corporations.

Last time out, we looked at the early years of the Marshall Court, seeing how we established

the authority of the court and the power of judicial review, with cases such as Marbury v. Madison.

Today we're going to combine this thread with the growing spread of commerce, leading up to Dartmouth College versus Woodward.

We begin with public corporate charters. Now, these have been part of our story right from the

very beginning, if we go all the way back to

Jamestown and the Virginia Company. The basic premise was that the English crown, or a colonial

government, would give a power to a person or association in exchange for performing an action

which would be in the public interest, such as forming a

college, bank, or even a whole colony, such as Virginia. These were relatively rare, and there was

no real differentiation between the public and private sphere. These were well known to Americans of our era, and many

of the founding fathers viewed them suspiciously. They tended to be monopolies, and they believed

that the state shouldn't give such power to a few individuals. Many states outlawed them, as Massachusetts did in 1780. But once the British

had been removed from the equation and the states were actively involved in governance,

they soon realized they couldn't do everything they wanted to. They simply didn't have the

resources. They had no choice but to issue

charters of incorporation to associations who would perform these jobs, such as transport,

education, banking and insurance. This provoked bitter opposition from Republican critics, but there was little option but to grant them.

But with their democratic hats on, they tried not to be restrictive.

Since these corporate charters were very valuable, everybody wanted them, and it would be

undemocratic to refuse them when others had them.

Between 1781 and 1785, the States issued 11 charters of incorporation.

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