How did corporations gain the same rights as US citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment? It can be traced all the way back to the 19th century when a "wily legal team" working on behalf of railroad corporation Southern Pacific convinced the Supreme Court that companies should have the same legal benefits of citizenship. The Atlantic has more on how one unethical Justice (the only sitting Justice ever to be arrested and charged with murder), led the nation down the path to making corporations people, too.