Let them be people, with all of the liabilities, responsibilities, and legal obligations as people. Otherwise what are we really talking about? The rights and p

Let them be people, with all of the liabilities, responsibilities, and legal obligations as people. Otherwise what are we really talking about? The rights and privileges of personhood, but without any of the accountability? How absurd it is. Indeed, the faux precedent in the Southern Pacific case would go on to be used by a Supreme Court that in the early 20th century became famous for striking down numerous economic regulations, including federal child-labor laws, zoning laws, and wage-and-hour laws. Meanwhile, in cases like the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), those same justices refused to read the Constitution as protecting the rights of African Americans, the real intended beneficiaries of the Fourteenth Amendment. Between 1868, when the amendment was ratified, and 1912, the Supreme Court would rule on 28 cases involving the rights of African Americans and an astonishing 312 cases on the rights of corporations. Absurd!