Er, I humbly think you're the one "rewriting history" (at least to as much of a degree as you claim the parent is, frankly it seems hyperbolic in either case for a simple historical debate.) Disclaimer: What follows is the ramblings of an armchair historian who has watched way too much ken burns.

The transcontinental railway was chartered in 1862 and completed in 1869. During that period BOTH companies (Union Pacific and Central Pacific) significantly influenced public policy in order to extract the most money from the deal. (everything from disingenuous surveying and geology to lobbying). That was almost 150 years ago, and ~80 years after the establishment of the bill of rights, the vast majority of american history.

I'd say America has our history inexorably linked with abuses by powerful corporations. From the treatment of the chinese by the railroads, to the steel/coal worker strikes (pinkertons/ludlow massacre), to the robber barons, and the impact left by Carnegie and Rockefeller and their ilk.

While I'd agree that there was certainly an upper class (aristocracy) in America around and after the founding, I think there are fair complaints in calling it as such when compared to "Traditional" aristocracies of the time (in England), with a much more significant wealth delta and a history of generational wealth/power/landholdings outside of business.

Finally, the civil war really only devastated the south economically, the north was pretty much untouched and served as the industrial power base eventually leading to the examples I cite above. So while the southern planting aristocracy may have been "hard reset" I've heard nothing but that the north prospered afterwards in their relative position of newfound power and intactness. (I've similarly never heard the connection drawn to WW1 where the british aristocracy was gutted due to the casualty levels of this war coupled with their tradition of military service)

Actually, I'm pretty sure that a large part of the civil war/southern resistance on the anti slavery front was motivated by the largest planters, who could be considered the "business powerhouses" of that space and time.

So while this turned into a bit of a wall of text, I'd tie it up with a polite disagreement. America and corporate power have almost always gone hand in hand, for better and (very often) for worse.

The industrial revolution began before the civil war; export-driven growth began taking off in the 1840s. More broadly, industrialization weakened an artisan middle class - wages fell during early industrialization. This power was always concentrated in the hands of a bourgeois owning class; the limited liability corporation was one of the key early innovations of American government in promoting this economic form.

The modern corporate form did not develop until later - a managerial class emerged starting around World War II (see: James Burnham) and is, I think, a big explanation for why the previous Gilded Age saw massive labor organizing that eventually drove American policy change, but this era has not - the ruling class bought their own organizers this time.

America didn't really have an aristocracy. It had something that if left unchecked would probably become an aristocracy, but it didn't exist in that form yet.

Depends on your definition of aristocracy. Remember, you used to have land to be able to vote.

You're right, that did limit enfranchisement. That was gone well before the Civil War, though. That would be an unusual definition of aristocracy, but I get it. By the same token, we currently limit the vote to people over 18 that are citizens. Are we currently aristocrats?