That's an excellent point that I hadn't really thought about, but reference to the first ten amendments collectively as **THE** Bill of Rights may be a more modern phraseology. At the time the 14th Amendment was being debated, there were only three other amendments in the Constitution beyond the original ten. It's doubtful that much effort was put into differentiating those ten from the other three in most discourse.
You're thus almost certainly correct that Bingham was referring to the 14th incorporating **A** bill of rights (i.e., a list of rights) which states would be obliged to respect. That makes a ton of sense. You're surely correct about this, and it would explain things better than my theory in earlier posts that they were speaking generally about the Bill of Rights. Instead, they were likely speaking of **A** bill of rights, by which they meant the rights specified in the 14th itself, not the first ten amendments Bill of Rights as we today understand them.
That would also explain why A) There was no firestorm debate over imposing the Establishment Clause on the states (as there surely would have been over such a radical change), B) states didn't act as if any changes had been made on religious issues when the 14th became law (no rush to either comply or evade), C) Congress never considered a single piece of legislation to enforce the Establishment Clause, though they had the power of enforcement under the 14th, and D) When a crusade erupted a few years later to end parochial school aid, it led to calls for a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, not congressional legislation under the 14th (even though the latter would have been easier to pass if the 14th had incorporated the Establishment Clause).
Good post.
Sorry, but people in the debates, including Bingham, specifically mention the first 8 Amendments.
When a crusade erupted a few years later to end parochial school aid, it led to calls for a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, not congressional legislation under the 14th
Sorry, the more logical and obvious explanation is that the slaughterhouss cases already ruled that the 14th Amendment did not apply the bill of rights to the states.