A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the conceptual nature of corporations as legal entities created by law rather than physical beings.
John Marshall's quote underscores the abstract and legalistic nature of corporations, emphasizing that they do not exist physically but are recognized by law. This perspective reflects on the powerful role that legal frameworks play in shaping economic and social relationships, demonstrating how institutions can influence society even when they cannot be seen or touched.
In practice
During a seminar on corporate law, this quote can illustrate the concept of corporate personhood.
The particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
If the agency of the mother in forming the character of her children is, in truth, so considerable, as I think it - if she does so much toward making her son what she would wish him to be - how essential is it that she should be fitted for the beneficial performance of these important duties.
The constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it.
The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.
The federal government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it . . . is now universally admitted.
The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.
My worst character flaw that I'm conscious of is that I tend to think my way into circles instead of resolving anything. It's paralyzing and boring for people around me.
Men really need sea-monsters in their personal oceans. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.
Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.
There is no reality of consciousness independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory).
Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
For 179 years [The Book of Mormon] has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other religious history β perhaps like no other book in any religious history- and still, it stands.
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