Industrial America and Immigrationin the 19th Century - Assignment Example

The federal government passed several acts to regulate corporations in the 19th century. These include the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. these and other regulations were rendered partly useless by another piece of legislation the 14th Amendment, which states that "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." The amendment was enacted to protect recently emancipated slaves in an antagonistic South after the civil war. But in 1886 in a court case against the Southern Pacific Railroad the court defined corporations as "persons" It followed that, as legal "persons," corporations had First Amendment rights as well.

This helped to twist the federal regulation of corporations and it also proves that the federal government should have regulated corporations more than they did in the late 19th Century. John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie are an amalgam of both robber barons and benign capitalists. Rockefeller made great contributions to charity and funded many educational and research institutions and he is remembered for both his takeovers and philanthropy. Similarly, steel magnate Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money.

After years of wheeling and dealing, Carnegie became the second richest man in history then he spent nearly all his fortune on founding Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and various public libraries.