This essay analyzes how a rhetorical culture emerged in which the Supreme Court of the United States assumed corporations were constitutional persons under the Fourteenth Amendment. Approaching rhetorical culture from a networked standpoint, I argue that corporate personhood emerged from Southern Pacific Railroad Co.’s networks and alliances with environmental preservationists, politicians, publics, lawyers, judges, and immigrants in the late 19th century. Contributing to literatures on rhetorical culture and agency, this study shows how Southern Pacific Railroad Co., through networks of influence and force, was a rhetorical subject that shaped a networked rhetorical culture that expanded the boundaries of the Fourteenth Amendment even though the Supreme Court of the United States had not worked out the philosophical underpinnings of corporate personhood. Corporate personhood remains theoretically restrained by legal discourses that reduce subjectivity to a singular, speaking, human subject.

中文翻译：

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火车如何成为人：南太平洋铁路公司的网络修辞文化和企业人格的曙光

本文分析了一种修辞文化是如何出现的，在这种文化中，美国最高法院假定公司是第十四修正案下的宪法人。从网络的角度来看修辞文化，我认为企业人格是从 19 世纪后期南太平洋铁路公司与环境保护主义者、政治家、公众、律师、法官和移民的网络和联盟中产生的。本研究为修辞文化和能动性方面的文献做出了贡献，展示了南太平洋铁路公司如何通过影响力和力量网络，是一个修辞主题，塑造了一种网络修辞文化，扩大了第十四修正案的界限，尽管美国最高法院还没有研究出企业人格的哲学基础。理论上，公司人格仍然受到法律话语的约束，这些话语将主体性降低为单一的、说话的人类主体。