cross-referenced news and research resources about
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with taxation of railroad properties. The case is most notable for the obiter dictum statement that juristic persons are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
For its opinion, the Court consolidated three separate cases: Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, California v. Central Pacific Railroad Company, and California v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
California had created a law which provided for taxation of railroad property. The taxpaying railroads challenged this law. They raised numerous defenses, including claims that the taxes violated equal protection. The lower court had entered judgment for the railroads, holding that the tax assessments were void because they improperly included property which was outside the jurisdiction of the agency that assessed the tax.
The Supreme Court never reached the equal protection claims. Nonetheless, this case is sometimes incorrectly cited as holding that corporations, as juristic persons, are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the question of whether corporations were persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment had been argued in the lower courts and briefed for the Supreme Court, the Court did not base its decision on this issue. However, before oral argument took place, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite announced: "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." This quotation was printed by the court reporter in the syllabus and case history above the opinion, but was not in the opinion itself. As such, it did not have any legal precedential value. Nonetheless, the persuasive value of Waite's essentially ultra vires statement did influence later courts, becoming part of American corporate law without ever actually being enacted by statute or formal judicial decision. For these reasons, it is literally an unprecedented extension of constitutional rights to US corporations.
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updated Tue. March 22, 2022
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AlterNet
January 7, 2018
In 1886, although the Court rejected their theory for the last and final time, the Clerk of the Court, John Chandler Bancroft Davis, inserted into the not-legally-binding headnote of the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case that the Chief Justice had, offhandedly, certified corporate personhood.
The Boston Globe
November 2, 2017
Polls have repeatedly shown that a broad majority of American citizens think money has too much influence in politics and support some sort of campaign finance reform. Yet, even as campaign spending continues to soar, the issue hasn't broken toward any actual national policy change for more than 15ÃÂ ...
BBN Times
October 18, 2017
Corporations were the vehicle of choice. They offered limited liability, the ability to raise equity financing that could be traded and legal personality (the latter enshrined by the 1886 court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad). The rise of trade and commerce and, especially during theÃÂ ...
The Hill
May 8, 2017
President Trump on Monday released his first batch of judicial nominees as he seeks to make his mark on the federal court system. Trump is nominating 10 judges, including two candidates he had previously floated for the Supreme Court, Joan Larsen and David Stras. Larsen, a judge on the MichiganÃÂ ...
AlterNet
July 31, 2016
When the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that corporations were persons covered by the 14th Amendment, it wasn't causing corporations to become powerful. It was affirming the power that corporations by then had attained. Likewise, the Court's 2010ÃÂ ...
Huffington Post
February 19, 2016
This was the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case dealt with a taxation matter and the Court neither decided the personhood issue nor did it even address the issue. Instead, the court reporter (or scribe as he was called), a former railroad company president, simply wrote inÃÂ ...
The New Republic
October 2, 2015
In a seemingly innocuous 1886 case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, a unanimous Court ruled that a railroad could not be taxed for fences that had been erected by the state and were therefore not part of the railroad's property. More significant, however, was an aside takenÃÂ ...
Truth-Out
June 10, 2015
It was 129 years ago last month that the Supreme Court issued its infamous decision that corporations were "people" for purposes of the 14th amendment. And with one fell swoop, "without argument or opinion," as the late Justice Douglas put it, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., arguablyÃÂ ...
NPR
October 24, 2011
BLOCK: The legal doctrine, as I understand it, goes back to a Supreme Court case from the late 19th century, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. What was that case about, essentially? WITT: So this is a case where the Occupy Wall Street protesters have distorted the details, but they reallyÃÂ ...
truthout
March 15, 2011
For reasons that were never recorded, moments before the Supreme Court was to render its decision in the now-infamous Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case, Chief Justice Waite turned his attention to Delmas and the other attorneys present. As railroad attorney Sanderson and his twoÃÂ ...
Huffington Post (blog)
July 12, 2010
The idea that corporations have the same rights as you and me comes from a Supreme Court decision over 120 years ago - Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) - the focus of which was whether railroads could deduct their debts from the value of their property for tax purposes.
The Boston Globe
November 2, 2017
Polls have repeatedly shown that a broad majority of American citizens think money has too much influence in politics and support some sort of campaign finance reform. Yet, even as campaign spending continues to soar, the issue hasn't broken toward any actual national policy change for more than 15Â ...
Boston.com
November 2, 2017
One was Buckley, and the other was [Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.] back in the 1800s that started a line of reasoning ...
BBN Times
October 18, 2017
... that could be traded and legal personality (the latter enshrined by the 1886 court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad).
The Hill
May 8, 2017
President Trump on Monday released his first batch of judicial nominees as he seeks to make his mark on the federal court system. Trump is ...
AlterNet
July 31, 2016
When the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that corporations were persons covered by the 14th ...
Huffington Post
February 19, 2016
This was the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case dealt with a taxation matter and the Court neither decided ...
Truth-Out
June 10, 2015
And with one fell swoop, "without argument or opinion," as the late Justice Douglas put it, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., ...
NPR
October 24, 2011
... doctrine, as I understand it, goes back to a Supreme Court case from the late 19th century, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.
truthout
March 15, 2011
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific R. Co., (1886). Likewise, it soon became accepted that the property of a corporation was protected ...
Huffington Post (blog)
July 12, 2010
The Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision extended the individual human rights of real people, including those in the Bill of ...
The Hill
May 8, 2017
President Trump on Monday released his first batch of judicial nominees as he seeks to make his mark on the federal court system. Trump isÃÂ ...
National Catholic Reporter
February 15, 2017
Religion News Foundation CEO Thomas Gallagher, far right, begins the panel discussion "Tolerance: A Key to Religious Freedom," Feb.
NBC Bay Area
January 31, 2017
Do you think it's ethical for the president to tweet something and later delete it? Yes; No; No strong take. Privacy policyÃÂ ...
BillMoyers.com
October 27, 2016
Campaign finance lawyers are pursuing two legal strategies to try and push back against the 2010 ruling, and other court decisions, thatÃÂ ...
Esquire.com
October 12, 2016
Illinois and, most memorably, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a constitutional absurdity for which we still are paying a priceÃÂ ...
AlterNet
July 31, 2016
When the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that corporations were persons covered by the 14thÃÂ ...
Huffington Post
February 19, 2016
This was the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case dealt with a taxation matter and the Court neither decidedÃÂ ...
Truth-Out
June 10, 2015
And with one fell swoop, "without argument or opinion," as the late Justice Douglas put it, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.,ÃÂ ...
NPR
October 24, 2011
... doctrine, as I understand it, goes back to a Supreme Court case from the late 19th century, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.
truthout
March 15, 2011
The Supreme Court ruled in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that a private corporation was a natural person under the U.S.ÃÂ ...
Daily Kos
December 31, 1999
... Supreme Court recognized not African-American personhood but corporate personhood in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.
Norwich Bulletin
November 11, 2016
The latter decision struck down attempts by states to limit corporate spending affecting ballot initiatives, which raises the centuries-old debate on corporate "personhood" and thorough reexamination of the dubious Santa Clara County v. Southern ...
Esquire.com
October 12, 2016
Illinois and, most memorably, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a constitutional absurdity for which we still are paying a price today.
Dissident Voice
October 10, 2016
The case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company set a precedent to claim any private corporation to be a person, entitled to legal rights and protections the Constitution affords to the people.
Patch.com
September 15, 2016
Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court interprets corporations as people under dozens of decisions, one of the first being the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case heard in 1886 at the Old Courthouse where it was ruled that corporations hadÃÂ ...
Salon
August 2, 2016
When the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that corporations were persons covered by the 14th Amendment, it wasn't causing corporations to become powerful.
Paste Magazine
April 12, 2016
The idea of corporate personhood dates back to 1886 and a case by the name of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.
CounterPunch
February 21, 2016
This was the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case dealt with a taxation matter and the Court neither decided the personhood issue nor did it even address the issue.
Huffington Post
February 19, 2016
This was the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case dealt with a taxation matter and the Court neither decided the personhood issue nor did it even address the issue.
Huffington Post
January 19, 2016
The 1886 Supreme Court ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company set corporations on the track towards effective legal personhood and protections under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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santa clara county v. southern pacific railroad
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santa clara county v. southern pacific railroad
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