Corporate Personhood & the English Lexicon

My esteemed Keloland colleague and NSU colleague Emeritus, David Newquist, joined the discussion of corporate personhood initiated by Cory Heidelberger and carried on by Doug Wiken and myself. In the midst of Professor Newquist's short essay, he has this:

Those who snickered at the corporations-are-persons contention were immediately assailed by the wing-dingers and informed that they were confused and ignorant and stupid.

Now I am not sure who the "wing-dingers" are, or what a wing-dinger is. The good professor is fond of attacking nameless parties. I did state that, in my opinion, Cory was confused about certain aspects of Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC. But I did not call him ignorant and would never call him stupid. While we frequently and fruitfully disagree, I think Cory is one of the best informed and most intelligent voices in the local blogosphere.

I am afraid I cannot say the same about Professor Newquist. The above paragraph continues as follows:

The English lexicon has from its inception defined a person as a human, an individual of specified character, the personality of a human self. To contend that a corporation, which is a political contrivance of humans with an agenda, is in any way a person is to fly in the face of an essential linguistic and semantic distinction that is deeply rooted in the language. But such affronts to literacy are not something new.

Now that highlighted part is very bold and admits of no ambiguity. Individual human beings are persons, in Newquist's view; but to contend that a corporation is "in any way a person" is an affront to literacy.

Well, when there is a dispute about the English lexicon, the thing to do is to consult an English lexicon. So I did. I looked up the word person in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online. I found this:

6: one (as a human being, a partnership, or a corporation) that is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties

Apparently, Merriam-Webster and its parent company, Encyclopedia Britannica, have committed an affront to literacy. M-W clearly defines partnerships and corporations as persons if the former are recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties, which they are.

Perhaps this is not good enough. So I went to the best source of information about the English lexicon "from its inception," the Oxford English Dictionary. There I discovered another affront to literacy.

7. Law. An individual (NATURAL PERSON n.) or corporate body (artificial person) recognized by the law as having certain rights and duties.

Oddly enough, the OED managed to back up its definition with quotes from English writings.

1475 Rolls of Parl. VI. 150/1 Almaner Londes, Tenementes..and Pensions, which any persone Temporell, corporat or not corporat..then had, held, posseded, or occupied.

1765 W. BLACKSTONE Comm. Laws Eng. I. i. 123 Natural persons are such as the God of nature formed us; artificial are such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and government; which are called corporations or bodies politic.

1833 Act 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 74 §1 The word 'Person' shall extend to a Body Politic, Corporate, or Collegiate, as well as an Individual.

1900 Daily News 20 Apr. 7/5 A Bill..extending to juridical persons, that is, duly registered corporations or partnerships, the right to engage in mining.

Apparently, from 1475 to 1900, the word person was used to indicate corporations. It has been and remains a commonplace of legal reasoning and political theory.

No one can blame an English professor for being ignorant of legal terminology. One could expect him to consult a dictionary regarding the plain meaning of an English word before he accuses others of an Orwellian distortion of language.

Comments

[donCoyote]

Professor, check out Websters 1828 dictionary.

"A body politic or corporate, formed and authorized by law to act as a single person; a society having the capacity of transacting business as an individual."

http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,corporation

[KB]

Thanks Don. Apparently Professor Newquist has his own private version of English.

[William]

Too bad OBama seems to be using Dr Newquist's dictionary, as well...

[phil]

as if dictionaries are not updated to reflect the times? legal definitions are included, but does that mean its correct usage. this seems to miss the point. the fact of the matter is that corporations should not be included in the definition, not what it has been amended too.
a corporation has been a "person" since the 1880's, but that does not make it just.

[KB]

Thanks, DC and William. Phil: yes, the fact that legal definitions are included does mean that that is the correct usage. That's the point of definitions. Whether it is just that corporations have been treated as persons, with rights and duties, is a separate question.

But it is not a difficult one. Corporations have been treated as legal persons because otherwise it is very difficult to regulate them. If it isn't a person, how can it break the law and be held accountable?

The question is not whether corporations should be treated as persons, but what rights and duties corporations should have.