Most importantly, the various state legislatures, not the electorate, decided who would sit in the federal senate. This ensured that the members of the U.S. Senate would be chosen by people with local property and prestige to protect.

It also left the niceties of popular rule to Brandies? ?laboratories of democracy.? By the late 1800s, nearly every one of the so-called laboratories operated under a Constitution approved by referendum, and, every state in the forty-five (45) elected its governor at the polls. This formed a stark contrast with evolution on the federal level.

In 1874, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to use the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection to void a clause of the Missouri Constitution denying women the right to vote, and, in 1894, repeated the notion that corporations were persons within the meaning of the 14th Amendment, and, speaking through Mr. Justice Brewer, voided a Texas law regulating railroad rates.

?* * * Brewer's opinion * * * exposed a philosophical line between (he) and his uncle, (U.S. Justice) Stephen J. Field, who (once wrote) that protection of property rights was the highest goal of the (federal) Constitution.? (parenthesis & emphasis mine).

This ?protection of property rights? stalled the development of labor law. In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that, while it would allow state laws regulating especially dangerous employment, the Freedom to Contract Clause prevented extending state regulation to workers in general.

And, who decided who would sit on the federal bench? The President and an appointed U.S. Senate.

As an aside, it's not important that it was the corporations who found themselves in the national catbird seat, nor, whether they retain that position today. The question is: How do we keep the government concerned about all its citizens? After all, it's well-established that, once created, a centralized authority, and those who pull its strings, strive to become absolute.