Sure, but we are way far away from even that. We have a whole cloth cherry picking of single words in order to justify anything and everything. The best example I think I could come up with is Santa Claus. How many of us tell our kids that this fat man is coming down the chimney with presents? Well, the presents are there under the tree aren't they? See, that's proof of all that the 14th amendment contains.
For a solid real-world (SCOTUS) example is Jefferson's Danbury letter and its use on the courts by two separate notable cases. In Reynolds v. United States, the court cites the Danbury letter. Word count? 132. Everson has a word count of 8. One of these two cases clearly set out to be dishonest and the other did not. With 8 words everybody has said everything and nobody has said a thing.
Look, with that kind of word count you could prove that in my past discussions with you I've discussed that the moon is made of swiss cheese. Which is exactly what progressives do and have done with the 14th and any other thing that they think they can gain advantage from.
The progressives desperately need a focus on intent when it comes to the 14th. That's where they win because they can make it whatever they want. The reality is there's no evidence for any of this it's been stretched so far, we're not in intent anymore. We're walking down the street in Mauritius. The progressives are simply flat out lying. That's why there's a 40 year gap. It wasn't until Woodrow Wilson invented the living constitution that we end up with Gitlow and all the rest of it.
As to the reading of the debate notes, I find that rather commendable. I too found various oddities in my readings,(and the amendment itself) but nothing anywhere near the realm of the outright hoaxes that have been cooked up out of the 14th. Bork's observations are dead on accurate and having read the notes that's why I trust his observation.
The 14th is just one of the bad consequences of the civil war which we are still living with today. One of the other is the consolidation of power in Washington DC and New York which is the primary problem we are currently affected with right now.
Also, you cite a 40 year gap, but you don't seem to be taking into account that the liberals ran with their power for those 40 years and it was not until Teddy Roosevelt started addressing issues of monopoly and "crony capitalism" that anything started to be done about the problem.