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In the last quarter of the 19th century, several economists and jurists raised their voices against the  growingcorporatization of the  American economy. Among them, featured also classical economists and classical jurists – a surprising circumstance given the unconditional favor that scholars imbued with classical  ideasshould allegedly bestow on any manifestation of business freedom and entrepreneurial spirit. Most law historians frame the troubled relationship between classical economics and the corporation in terms of the doctrinal and jurisprudential controversies about the true nature of corporations that surrounded the Supreme Court’s ruling in Santa Clara (1886). The paper casts new light by making recourse to the history of economic thought to uncover those aspects of classical economics that made it almost impossible for its supporters to unreservedly love the corporation.