1. During the time of the special charter incorporation, corporate status did not inevitably imply limited liability, and charters did not contain creditor-protective provisions. See J.W. Hurst, The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the Law of the United States, 1780-1970 (Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia 1970) p. 51.
2. Ibid., at pp. 27-28, 51-52.
3. See Central Trust Co. v. Bridges, 57 F. 753, 766 (6th Cir. 1893), modified sub. nom. Central Trust Co. v. Condon, 67 F. 84 (6th Cir. 1895); Atchison, T. & S.F.R.R. v. Davis, 34 Kan. 209, 210, 8 P. 530, 531 (1885); P. Blumberg, ‘Limited Liability and Corporate Groups’, 11 J. Corp. L. (1986) p. 573 atpp. 594, 609-611.
4. The incorporation statutes authorized low-par and no-par common stock, permitted minimal paid-in capital and later reductions of capital, and dropped requirements for minimum debt-equity ratios. See Hurst, op. cit. n. 1, at p. 53. Legal capital rules persist in US corporate codes, in many cases retaining the same form taken in the nineteenth century. But the forms can be satisfied by a nominal fixed capital. As a practical result, the rules bar only against transfers made to shareholders of insolvent firms, tracking protection independently provided under fraudulent conveyance statutes. For a complete description of the field, see B. Manning, Legal Capital, 2nd edn. (Mineola, Foundation Press 1982).
5. Hurst, op. cit. n. 1, at pp. 54–55.