Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 588.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 310 (2010) 

427 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

the  scope  and  content  of  corporate  organization,”  including 
“the  internal  structure  of  the  corporation.”  J.  Hurst,  The 
Legitimacy  of  the  Business  Corporation  in  the  Law  of  the 
United  States  1780–1970,  pp.  15–16  (1970)  (reprinted  2004). 
Corporations  were  created,  supervised,  and  conceptualized 
as  quasi-public  entities,  “designed  to  serve  a  social  function 
for the state.”  Handlin & Handlin, Origins of the American 
Business  Corporation,  5  J.  Econ.  Hist.  1,  22  (1945).  It  was 
“assumed  that  [they]  were  legally  privileged  organizations 
that had to be closely scrutinized by the legislature because 
their  purposes  had  to  be  made  consistent  with  public  wel­
fare.”  R. Seavoy, Origins of the American Business Corpo­
ration, 1784–1855, p. 5 (1982). 

The individualized charter mode of incorporation reﬂected 
the  “cloud  of  disfavor  under  which  corporations  labored”  in 
the early years of this Nation.  1 W. Fletcher, Cyclopedia of 
the  Law  of  Corporations  § 2,  p.  8  (rev.  ed.  2006);  see  also 
Louis K. Liggett Co.  v.  Lee,  288  U. S.  517,  548–549  (1933) 
(Brandeis,  J.,  dissenting)  (discussing  fears  of  the  “evils”  of 
business corporations); L. Friedman, A History of American 
Law 194 (2d ed. 1985) (“The word ‘soulless’ constantly recurs 
in debates over corporations. . . . Corporations, it was feared, 
could concentrate the worst urges of whole groups of men”). 
Thomas  Jefferson  famously  fretted  that  corporations  would 
subvert the Republic.54  General incorporation statutes, and 
widespread  acceptance  of  business  corporations  as  socially 
useful  actors,  did  not  emerge  until  the  1800’s.  See  Hans­
mann  &  Kraakman,  The  End  of  History  for  Corporate  Law, 
89 Geo. L. J. 439, 440 (2001) (hereinafter Hansmann & Kraak­
man)  (“[A]ll  general  business  corporation  statutes  appear  to 
date from well after 1800”). 

54 See  Letter  from  Thomas  Jefferson  to  Tom  Logan  (Nov.  12,  1816),  in 
12  The  Works  of  Thomas  Jefferson  42,  44  (P.  Ford  ed.  1905)  (“I  hope  we 
shall . . . crush in  [its]  birth  the  aristocracy  of  our  monied  corporations 
which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and 
bid deﬁance to the laws of our country”).