Free Incorporation.

Like private law, the changing legal treatment of corporations reflected an assault on privilege and the impact of an erratic economy. Anglo- American law originally viewed the process of incorporation as a grant of authority issued by the government to private persons charged with performing specific tasks that benefited the public as well as the investors in the corporation. A good example is a corporation created to build a bridge, which would improve transportation for the community and make a regulated profit by charging tolls. The mechanism for policing corporations was the corporate charter, issued on a one-by-one basis in special legislation and subject to revocation if the corporation exceeded its carefully defined grant of authority. Beginning with the Revolution, Americans criticized this approach to incorporation as an abuse of government powers that gave undue privileges to the few people...