This chapter describes the treatment of corporations as a form of private property that occurred within the context of debates over sovereignty, government, and political economy during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It focuses on the reorganization of the corporation as a private institution in U.S. law, and discusses the significance of the 19th-century U.S. legal constructions in establishing a regime of managerial capitalism that anchored U.S. economic growth through the course of the 20th century. The chapter also talks about the U.S. corporate law that has been constituted as an important source for conceptualizing aspects of the global political and economic order.