MADISON (1809 – 1817) FEARED ARTIFICIAL DEVICES LIKE CITIZENS UNITED THAT ROBS AMERICANS OF THEIR NATURAL FREEDOMS AND DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC!

James Madison warnings on Corporations + National Security State = WERE 100% CORRECT!

MADISON (1809 – 1817) = A giant among US presidents = Created Much of Our constitutional system = Detail and Mechanics

MADISON = Focus on corporations’ role they play in our nation’s political life = Something he anticipated = Citizens United Unrestricted corporate funding of independent political advertisements – Justice Kennedy focused heavily on James Madison as the “Father of the Constitution” + Key architect of the Bill of Rights.

Justice Kennedy quoted Madison for Citizens United = “Factions will necessarily form in our Republic, but the remedy of destroying the liberty of some factions is worse than disease. Factions should be checked by permitting them all to speak and by entrusting the people to judge what is true and what is false.” = KENNEDY EXAGGERATING Madison’s primacy of free speech for Americans and EXTRAVAGANTLY AND FALSLY applying it to ARTIFICIAL ENTITIES (Corporations)!

FACT = Justice Kennedy IS WRONG THINKING that Madison is on the SIDE OF HIS CORPORATE AGENDA.

FACT = Madison would not support the Citizens United opinion = WITHDRAW THIS EVIL!

FACT = Constitution and our Founders did NOT LOOK POSITIVELY ON CORPORATIONS or as MADISON called them “ARTIFICIAL PARTIES.”

FACT = Madison distrusted and CRITICIZED Hamilton’s plan to give preferential treatment to a particular (UNNATURAL PARTIES) mercantile (CORPORATE) and moneyed (NOW MULTINATIONAL BILLIONAIRES) interest = Favoring an inequality of property… = Vocabulary of GOP = NOW USA # 1 in WEALTH INEQUALITY + # 1 in INCOME INEQUALITY among developed nations + #4 Among all nations

FACT = Since 1947 the Role of corporations in the development of the national security state = ENTIRELY Against the Founding Fathers’ FEARS AND GOALS of these ARTIFICIAL PARTIES (CORPORATIONS).

MADISON = VIEWED HUMANS AS NATURAL PARTIES AND CORPORATIONS AS ARTIFICIAL PARTIES = MADE OUT OF PAPER = UNNATURAL PARTIES! = THESE NEW DEVICES MUST REGULATED

FACT = Justice Kennedy IGNORANCE of Corporations as “artificial parties” to which Madison refers is AMAZING = MADISON says Corporate or Business Entities voices in the political process is inherently corrupting = Instead the political process must be driven by natural (HUMAN) and not artificial (UNNATURAL CORPORATE PARTIES).

FACT = Madison FEARED THE UNNATURAL CORPORATE CORRUPTING INFLUENCES AND WROTE THEM OFF AS BEING DANGEROUS TO DEMOCRACY!

FACT = Agricultural south, with some support in the small towns of the Middle Atlantic interior and among immigrants, “mechanics” (as skilled or semi-skilled laborers were then called) and the servant class in the major cities of the Northeast.

FACT = The Federalists = The merchant class of New England and the Middle Atlantic.

FACT = MADISON + Constitution = Corporations barely existed at the time the Constitution and Bill of Rights were conceived and adopted. = “company” was usually attached to a partnership, which is neither a corporation and has NO limitations on its liabilities.

There were a handful of great royal-grant companies, such as The Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company, which played a complex political, social and commercial function–as I will explain, this particular legacy is extremely important to understanding the Framers’ attitudes.

FACT = MADISON + Constitution = word “Corporation” = Meant Municipality or Town + Utility + Universities + Churches + Banks = Supplied services to NATURAL HUMANS = Water + Roads + Canals + Education + the Transfer of funds for services = An incorporated association had a charter that could be REVOLKED or “granted” based on the Quality and VALUE of services provided to NATURAL HUMANS in America.

FACT = Universities (Corporations) were created and could be extinguished at any time and for any reason. = Corporation had “only those properties which the charter of creation confer on it.” = Powers = own and dispose of real property, negotiate contracts = Only rights conferred = Had to do some sort of public good to survive.

Colonization = The Virginia Company = Formed to support the colonization of Virginia.

States = stepped into the Shoes of ARTIFICIAL PARTIES that British filled after the Revolution = Notion of corporate entities = Viewed as part of a “social contract.”

FACT = Madison and Jefferson argued that the power to create corporations rests with the sovereign people = Could not be conferred on the federal government.

So Corporations at the time of the Founders were:

CORPORATIONS = Considered Artificial Parties NOT HUMAN
CORPORATIONS = Must SERVE SOCIETAL NEEDS TO CONTINUE TO EXIST!
CORPORATIONS = COULD BE REMOVED IF THEY DID NOT MEET SOCIETIES NEEDS
CORPORATIONS = NEVER ENVISIONED AS A GOLDMAN OR EXXON OR KOCH!

Transformation of the CORPORATION in America = After the High Federalist meltdown of 1799-1800 = Countercurrent to a FEDERALIST or WHIG philosophy = Jefferson to Madison to Monroe 1801-1825 = Hostile to corporations through this period = But were unwilling to interfere in the state grants of corporations.

By the time Democrats under Andrew Jackson took control 1829 Americans began to accept the Corporate form PROSPERING IN NEW YORK and much of the NORTH.

FACT = The Founding Fathers talk about “corporations” as Universities or a few banks or Utilities = NOT Exxon or JPMorgan

FACT = Later “Corporations” became what Hamilton planned under FEDERALISTS’ notions = Give preferential treatment to a particular (UNNATURAL PARTIES) mercantile (CORPORATE) and moneyed (NOW MULTINATIONAL BILLIONAIRES) interest = Favoring an inequality of property… = Vocabulary of FEDERALISTS AND CURRENT GOP that resulted NOW = USA # 1 in WEALTH INEQUALITY + # 1 in INCOME INEQUALITY among developed nations + #4 Among all nations.

Madison’s Attitude Towards Corporations was VERY DIFFERENT FROM JUSTIC KENNEDY’s BULL CHIOT!

MADISON = Writings explain his attitudes towards corporations and the role they might play in politics, and three of them are particularly useful:

MADISON = Congress on February 8, 1791 Madison opposes Hamilton’s proposal to charter a Bank of the US = Madison stressed that corporations, unlike natural persons, had only the exact measure of rights conferred by the state they operated = NOT EQUAL TO NATURAL PEOPLE (AMERICANS) = NO “inalienable rights” which arose under natural law = NO access to the rights of the “people of the United States” as defined in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

MADISON = Made clear that Corporations were “powerful machines” that might well do a great deal of mischief if left unguarded.

MADISON = Was Extremely suspicious of Hamilton’s motives and “monopolies.”

MADISON = DISLIKED the risk banks caused the economy (runs ect.) + RISK to USA being at all credit-dependent upon a PRIVATE bank = He cites the dangers from East India and South Seas Companies.

MADISON = Feverishly opposition Hamilton’s bank scheme. Hamilton set up The Bank of New York = Planned to merge it into the New national bank = Feared Federalist + Hamilton’s + William Duer = A Great Rogue expected to take control of the bank

William Duer = Hamilton’s CROOK was EXPOSED within a year of doing a bond SCAM (LIKE JPM DOES FAR TOO OFTEN TODAY) that almost brought down the Bank of New York. = Duer was PROSECUTED AND CONVICTED to spend the rest of his life in PRISON.

MADISON = wrote in the National Gazette in 1792 = “Hamilton’s financial program, a plan to give preferential treatment to a particular mercantile and moneyed interest, in order to bind it tightly to the executive’s energetic agenda. His rhetoric is withering, and his weapon of choice is devastating irony. He summarizes his opponents’ views in the following manner: ‘In all political societies, different interests and parties arise out of the nature of things, and the great art of politicians lies in making them checks and balances to each other. Let us then increase these natural distinctions by favoring an INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY (FRAUD BY A PRIVILEGED FEW)… We shall then have the more (NO) checks to oppose each other; we shall have the more (NO) scales and the more (NO) weights to protect and maintain the equilibrium.’

MADISON = “The language here is very close to his own, yet the distinctions make all the difference. He shows how a slight shift (HAMILTON IS A FRAUDSTER OUT FOR SCAMMING), using the vocabulary of American republicanism, in this case the doctrine of checks and balances, can be made to pervert republican ends. (MADISON IS CALLING HAMILTON A LIAR) ‘From the expediency, in politics, of making natural parties (CORPORATIONS ARE NOT NATURAL PARTIES BUT ARE ARTIFICIAL WITH NO HUMAN RIGHTS), mutual checks on each other, to infer the propriety of creating artificial parties, in order to form them into mutual checks, is not less absurd (CLEARLY HAMILTON LIES) than it would be in ethics, to say, that new vices (HAMILTON PROMOTES FRAUD) ought to be promoted, where they would counteract each other, because this use may be made of existing vices.’”

FACT: HAMILTON = A PURE CRIMINAL OUT TO SCAM AMERICANS FROM DAY ONE = USING FRAUDULENT BANKS = SOURCE OF GOP FRAUD TODAY!

FACT: Justice Kennedy’s understanding of Madison = ABSOLUTELY WRONG IN EVERY WAY! = A HAMILTONIAN FALSELY USING MADISON TO SUPPORT HIS LIES!

MADISON = Defines Business Entities voices in the political process is inherently corrupting and MUST NOT BE ALLOWED = Instead the political process must be driven by NATURAL HUMANS and NOT ARTIFICIAL PARTIES.

MADISON and Jeffersonian party = Large and Powerful = Anchored in the agricultural south + Some Skilled Labor in Small Towns in the Middle Atlantic interior and among immigrants + the servant class in the major cities of the Northeast.

HAMILTON + The Federalists = Based solidly in the merchant class of New England and the Middle Atlantic = SMALL BANKSTER CLASS (Refer to William Duer) + MERCHANTS = LEVERAGING THEIR PRIVILEGES TO RUN SCAM = WANTED FED GOV (USING THE PEOPLES’ RESOURCES) TO BACK UP THEIR SCAMS = BAILOUTS etc.!

Madison’s and Jefferson’s prime worry was the leveraging of a corporate charter for domestic political purposes that would corrupt the finely tuned political system of the US Constitution giving Criminals an open door to foreign influence = The ROTCHILD BANKSTERS OF EUROPE to hurt the American Economy!

MADISON = Wrote (1832) about “monopolies and corporations” warning against allowing monopolies to abuse the public for private gain = States must periodically PURGE such monopolies that Madison called EVIL = Typically monopolies were to build a bridge or toll road or convey water = A guarantee of exclusivity but highly regulated:

MADISON Wrote =“Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles. The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the US”

MADISON Wrote = We need to recall that Madison launched his career as an attorney for Baptist ministers who faced imprisonment and flogging for preaching in Virginia,11 where the Anglican Church had a monopoly on the licensing of preachers. Madison’s own confession remains somewhat ambiguous: he attended a Calvinist school, his writings show strong Calvinist influence, but he was married in and attended an Anglican church, and in later life expressed such critical views about established churches generally that he was often attacked as a deist or atheist. Whatever his confession (if any), Madison was a staunch believer in freedom of religious expression and believed that the nation benefited from a competition of ideas about God every bit as much as about politics and economics. But what does he mean by “accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies”? He is intentionally opaque to some extent, but I sense his concern can be inferred from his own career: he is troubled by the Anglican Church, the great wealth it had amassed in property holdings which were settled through corporations, and its ability to influence political life in the country through its wealth rather than the force and reason of its ideas.12 Surely the idea of an overweening Episcopal Church seems a bit comical to modern America–but note the sequencing: anonymous accumulation of wealth through corporate vehicles, then the unseen hand of political influence.

MADISON = ENDORSED UK’s Edmund Burke’s Critique of Corporations in Politics

1786-1795 Edmund Burke in UK parliament moved to impeach Warren Hastings Former Head of East India Company in Bengal = The Hastings trial = Case rested on a powerful conviction that corporations have no business assuming control over the lives of human beings in the political world.

Burke took moral offense to the notion that a for-profit business would effectively assume the reins of political authority over people of India = Corrupt Idea! = Burke Cataloging their MANY misdeeds against Humanity. = Exposing the mendacity and misrule in India of the East India Company. = The displacement of local government + Establishment of trade monopolies + Imposition of abusive taxation = Madison’s concerns about corporations. = The company Burke wrote, “one whole system of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of destruction of the public, and of supersession …”

Burke said = It was natural and proper for corporations to turn a profit for their shareholders = But he objected to them dominating or taking over the functions of government. = Madison had same belief when attacking Hamilton’s (FED RESERVE) national bank TAKEOVER OF ECONOMY + Madison cited the financial entanglements of the East India Company lending to the UK and extracted political concessions in return + Circumvented parliament’s appropriation process.

Madison and Burke = Shared many Beliefs = Those who govern = Must be constrained by the law + Motivated by the natural interests of the people they Govern. = Therefor Commercial corporations who drive for profits ignore BOTH CRITERIA.

Madison and Burke = Believed that once Corporations took Government Powers = They use GOV as their OWN Engine to Create Personal Profits and IGNORE the needs of HUMAN BEINGS = CRIMINAL KLEPTOCRACY

Madison and Burke = Solution was to keep Corporations out of government = Let Corporations do business and commerce with Governance and Regulation by “GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE!”

Madison and Burke = WON using the POWER OF THEIR IDEAS and Provoked a broad sense of shame about the Corporate Mismanagement of Peoples. Corporations LOST ALL MORAL AUTHORITY! = EAST INDIA COMPANY WAS PUT TO AN END after the War of 1857, as was the First National Bank of US!

SUMMARY – WHY MADISON WOULD DISCREDIT JUSTICE KENNEDY using him to Justify CORPORATIONS having POWER IN GOVERNMENT:

MADISON = VERY Hostile to corporations associated with Government

MADISON = Embrace the corporation and the concept of limited liability as useful mechanisms for commerce and economic development.

MADISON = Felt that ON RARE OCCASIONS Government could grant a monopoly to secure a vital service to the people = A Utility + To build a Bridge = BUT VERY LIMITED TIME AND TERMS monitored by Government. = Required careful government MONITORING to prevent Corporate abuses.

MADISON = Was against HIGH TAXES but like Jefferson he believed in PROGRESSIVE TAXATION!

MADISON = Disliked Corporations (Artificial Parties = Anonymous Societies was term of day) because they were vehicles for accumulation of vast and invisible wealth by the FEW used for Political Influence + used to PASS on Inherited Wealth. = Piketty’s Concern

MADISON = Believed Corporation WERE NOT CITIZENS AND HAD NO “Natural Rights,” = Only specific rights conferred by their GOVERNMENT GRANTED charters
MADISON = Religious Corporations = Churches do have some NATURAL RIGHTS = Freedom to Assemble and speak and worship for example.

MADISON = Believed that Congress had the right to impose limits on corporate engagement in the political sphere that would dilute the voice of natural persons.

MADISON = Attacked the Bank of the United States + He repeatedly Attacked the corporate holdings of churches.