A summary of the activity of the Illinois legislature in 1833 mentions that bills for incorporating companies always face stiff opposition. The economic theories on which that opposition is based are so foreign to our modern thinking that it would be difficult to find any legislator of either party who would subscribe to them today. If you hear someone spouting that America has always been the land of free-market capitalism, you may now smugly assert that you know better.
Several companies have been incorporated at this session, for manufacturing purposes. These bills were much opposed, and long discussed. There has always been in this state, a great jealousy of corporations. It has been well contended, that by the aggregation of a large capital in the hands of a few individuals, they acquire advantages over the individual trader, which enables them to oppress him, and control the market. This doctrine may be carried too far; for some purposes, corporations are necessary and beneficial, and they should be confined to such cases. There is also, in this country, a great repugnance against allowing such companies to accumulate large possessions in real estate; or giving them any powers under which they might carry on any of the operations properly belonging to a bank, especially lending money, or issuing paper for general circulation, as in lieu of money. The charters granted at this session have been strictly guarded in these, and other respects. They are limited as to the amount of real estate which they may hold, and prohibited from issuing paper for general circulation; they may trade only to the amount of the capital stock actually paid in, and for any debts contracted above that amount, the individual stockholders are personally liable.“Notes on Illinois,” in the Western Monthly Magazine, May, 1833.