Corporations are <i>legal persons</i>. This is not the same a human beings which are <i>natural persons</i>. The defining issues in corporate law came from the anti-slavery amendments to the US constitution. All hinged around the usage of the term <i>natural person</i> vs the term <i>person</i>.<p>Edit: this means that the generic <i>person</i> covers both <i>natural persons</i> and <i>legal persons</i>