Editing Corporate personhood (section)

====Historical background in the United States====
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During the colonial era, British corporations were chartered by the crown to do business in North America. This practice continued in the early United States. They were often granted monopolies as part of the chartering process. For example, the controversial [[Bank Bill of 1791]] chartered a 20-year corporate [[monopoly]] for the [[First Bank of the United States]]. Although the Federal government has from time to time chartered corporations, the general chartering of corporations has been left to the states.  In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, corporations began to be chartered in greater numbers by the states, under general laws allowing for incorporation at the initiative of citizens, rather than through specific acts of the legislature.

The degree of permissible government interference in corporate affairs was controversial from the earliest days of the nation.  In 1790, [[John Marshall]], a private attorney and a veteran of the [[Continental Army]], represented the board of the [[College of William and Mary]], in litigation that required him to defend the corporation's right to reorganize itself and in the process remove professors, ''The Rev John Bracken v. The Visitors of Wm & Mary College'' (7 Va. 573; 1790 [[Supreme Court of Virginia]]). The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled that the original Crown charter provided the authority for the corporation's Board of Visitors to make changes including the reorganization.

As the 19th century matured, manufacturing in the U.S. became more complex as the [[Industrial Revolution]] generated new inventions and business processes. The favored form for large businesses became the corporation because the corporation provided a mechanism to raise the large amounts of investment capital large business required, especially for capital intensive yet risky projects such as railroads.

Following the reasoning of the Dartmouth College case and other precedents (see {{format link|#Case law in the United States}} below), corporations could exercise the rights of their shareholders and these shareholders were entitled to some of the legal protections against arbitrary state action. Their cause was strengthened by the adoption of general incorporation statutes in the states in the late 19th century, most notably in New Jersey and Delaware, which allowed anyone to form corporations without any particular government grant or authorization, and thus without the government-granted monopolies that had been common in charters granted by the Crown or by acts of the legislature (see [[Delaware General Corporation Law]]). In ''[[Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad]]'' (1886), the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to corporations. Since then the doctrine has been repeatedly reaffirmed in case law.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clarke |first1=Frank |last2=Dean |first2=Graeme |last3=Egan |first3=Matthew |title=The Unaccountable & Ungovernable Corporation: Companies' use-by-dates close in |date=21 March 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-96409-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQQkAwAAQBAJ&dq=Fourteenth+Amendment+corporations+repeatedly+reaffirmed&pg=PT31 |language=en}}</ref>{{Chronology citation needed|date=March 2019}}