Institutional Origins of American Exceptionalism: A Preliminary Sketch with Reference to Canada.

American public policy with respect to private corporations is without doubt ?exceptional.? Scholars from Alexis de Tocqueville to James S. Coleman have noted Americans? unusual propensity for ?associating,? or organizing privately, without the assistance of the state. Most explain this particular feature of American social behavior as the result of either the unique ?norms and habits? of the American people or the absence of state-regulated bodies that might otherwise have performed necessary public functions. These perspectives overlook the role of corporate law in the history of American associationalism in general and the pre-revolutionary origins of American corporate law in particular. This paper explores the colonial origins of American corporate law and seeks to relate them to the 19th century proliferation of both for-profit and non-profit private corporations. Incorporation is, by definition, a legal privilege granted and protected by the state. Post-colonial American legislatures created the legal norm of ?freedom of incorporation? in light of their forebears? frustration with an English system in which corporate charters were rarely granted and in which colonial assemblies? right to grant such charters remained ambiguous. Two brief examples are discussed: the early colonial struggle to charter America?s first universities and the post-Revolutionary fight over the incorporation of state and national banks. The former case ? the colonial fight over the issuance of college charters, represents a key ?turning point? in the political development of the United States. In an effort to construct a new explanation of the long-standing differences between American and Canadian political culture, counter-examples from the history of Canadian legal and economic development are discussed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]