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 The state of facts existing at the time of the formation of the Constitution forbids the supposition that the commerce of corporations was excluded. From the time when commerce began to revive in the middle ages, corporations had been a great and important instrument of commerce. This fact is too conspicuous to be overlooked. The East India Company, founded 1599, and made perpetual in 1610, had, in its pursuit of commerce, conquered and held vast possessions. Every commercial people, from Wisby round to Venice, had employed these associations as the instruments of commerce. Morellet, a French writer on commercial subjects, whose book was published in 1770, gives a list of a large number of these companies. Postlethwaite, whose Dictionary of Trade appeared in 1774, does the same. We need but refer to The Merchant Adventurers' Company, in the time of Edward IV, to The Russian Merchants' Company, to The Levant Company, The Virginia Company, The Turkey Company, The Greenland Company, The Hudson Bay Company, The Hamburg Company, The Great Dutch East India Company. And when the Constitution was proposed, some of the States to be united under it, as ex. gr. Massachusetts and Plymouth, had their origin, and settlement, and growth under the charters of trading corporations. In 1776 Adam Smith, [75 U.S. 168, 172]   whose Wealth of Nations was extensively read and admired, speaks of them largely.

Even if it was not then known that corporations had been extensively employed as instruments of commerce, still it the terms of the Constitution were broad enough to include all instruments, all would be included. How much more, when the use of this instrumentality was then known, conspicuous, and of vast importance. The truth is, that the Constitution has no reference to the particular instruments to be employed. These instruments may be greatly varied, according to the views of interest and expediency of those who carry on commerce.

Single persons, general partnerships, special partnerships, associations not incorporated, but having some of the incidents, corporations technically, all these alike are agencies of commerce. The Constitution has no reference to the modes of association by which the commerce should be carried on. This was of no more importance than whether sails or steam were used in the matter.