Jefferson and the Selfish Spirit of Commerce, "that knows no country, and feels no passion.."

Corporate personhood is hardly what the constitutional framers had in mind...or was it? John Nichols explains:

(Thomas Jefferson) was, as well, a relentless critic of the monopolizing of economic power by banks, corporations and those who put their faith in what the third president called “the selfish spirit of commerce (that) knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.”

Jefferson might not have wanted a lot of government, but he wanted enough government to assert the sovereignty of citizens over corporations.

In the early years of the 19th century, as banks and corporations began to flex their political muscles, he announced: “I hope we shall crush … in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Some would have us believe the founders intended for corporations to control our elections -- and, tragically, five of these Tories sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, where they recently ruled that the nation’s biggest businesses may spend whatever they like to buy the results that serve their bottom lines.