The Law of Corporations

This chapter discusses the development of corporate law in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1800, corporation law was a torpid backwater of law, mostly a matter of municipalities, charities, and churches. Only a bridge or two, a handful of manufacturing enterprises, a few banks, a few insurance companies, disturbed its quiet. The nineteenth century, however, was the age of the business corporation. By 1870, corporations had a commanding position in the economy. Private practice and legislation made the law of corporations. The courts played a minor role. No constitutional convention met, between 1860 and 1900, without considering the problem of the corporation. This was a nineteenth-century constant; it changed form, format, and its cast of characters, but there was a numbing sameness of theme.