From a People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Early in the nineteenth century the [Supreme] Court laid the legal basis for a nationally regulated economy by establighing federal control over interstate commerce, and the legal basis for corporate capitalism by making the contract sacred.
In 1895 the Court interpreted the Sherman Act so as to make it harmless. It said a monopoly of sugar refining was a monopoly in manufacturing, not commerce, and so could not be regulated by Congress through the Sherman Act...The Court also said the Sherman Act could be used against interstate strikes (the railway strike of 1894) because they were in restraint of trade. It also declared unconstitutional a small attempt by Congress to tax high incomes at a higher rate...In later years it would refuse to break up the Standard Oil and American Tobacco monopolies, saying the Sherman Act barred only "unreasonable" combinations in restraint of trade.
A New York banker toasted the Supreme Court in 1895: "I give you, gentlemen, the Supreme Court of the United States—guardian of the dollar, defender of private property, enemy of spoliation, sheet anchor of the Republic."
Very soon after the Fourteenth Amendment became law, the Supreme Court began to demolish it as a protection for blacks, and to develop it as a protection for corporations...By this time the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that corporations were "persons" and their money was property protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Supposedly, the Amendment had been passed to protect Negro rights, but of the Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, nineteen dealt with the Negro, 288 dealt with corporations...
...In 1893, Supreme Court Justice David J. Brewer, addressing the New York State Bar Association, said:
"It is the unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few...The great majority of men are unwilling to endure that long self-denial and saving which makes accumulation possible...and hence it always has been, and until human nature is remodeled always will be true, the wealth of a nation is in the hands of a few, while the many subsist upon the proceeds of their daily toil."
This was not just a whim of the 1880s and 1890s—it went back to the Founding Fathers, who had learned their law in the era of Blackstone's Commentaries, which said: "So great is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the common good of the whole community."
In 1895 the Court interpreted the Sherman Act so as to make it harmless. It said a monopoly of sugar refining was a monopoly in manufacturing, not commerce, and so could not be regulated by Congress through the Sherman Act...The Court also said the Sherman Act could be used against interstate strikes (the railway strike of 1894) because they were in restraint of trade. It also declared unconstitutional a small attempt by Congress to tax high incomes at a higher rate...In later years it would refuse to break up the Standard Oil and American Tobacco monopolies, saying the Sherman Act barred only "unreasonable" combinations in restraint of trade.
A New York banker toasted the Supreme Court in 1895: "I give you, gentlemen, the Supreme Court of the United States—guardian of the dollar, defender of private property, enemy of spoliation, sheet anchor of the Republic."
Very soon after the Fourteenth Amendment became law, the Supreme Court began to demolish it as a protection for blacks, and to develop it as a protection for corporations...By this time the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that corporations were "persons" and their money was property protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Supposedly, the Amendment had been passed to protect Negro rights, but of the Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, nineteen dealt with the Negro, 288 dealt with corporations...
...In 1893, Supreme Court Justice David J. Brewer, addressing the New York State Bar Association, said:
"It is the unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few...The great majority of men are unwilling to endure that long self-denial and saving which makes accumulation possible...and hence it always has been, and until human nature is remodeled always will be true, the wealth of a nation is in the hands of a few, while the many subsist upon the proceeds of their daily toil."
This was not just a whim of the 1880s and 1890s—it went back to the Founding Fathers, who had learned their law in the era of Blackstone's Commentaries, which said: "So great is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the common good of the whole community."
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