"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction of the equal protection of the laws."
Why stop at the 1st amendment? The right of the people to keep and bear arms should also be "incorporated."
If the Supreme Court of the United States had not made this interpretation of the above clauses in the 14th Amendment, the states would have been free to restrict religious freedom and even establish a particular religion as the official state religion, ...
How ironic. The 1st amendment was intended to protect State establishments from Federal infringement. Many States retained their religious establishments after the adoption of the Bill of Rights well into the 19th century. The above incorporation interpretation must be in error in some way.
Why stop at the 1st amendment? The right of the people to keep and bear arms should also be "incorporated."
The 2nd doesn't really need 'incorporation' by the USSC.
None of the amendments did. -- They all apply as being an integral part of our supreme Law of the Land. -- According to:
Article VI, Clause 2
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
How ironic. The 1st amendment was intended to protect State establishments from Federal infringement. Many States retained their religious establishments after the adoption of the Bill of Rights well into the 19th century. The above incorporation interpretation must be in error in some way.
State sponsored religions were sort of 'grandfathered in' for the original States. -- But look at the trouble Utah had trying to enter the Union while 'respecting' the Mormon religion.
Took Utah 40 years to gain statehood.
"The Establishment Clause does not purport to protect individual rights."
"Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision--it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right."
"...Even assuming that the Establishment Clause precludes the Federal Government from establishing a national religion, it does not follow that the Clause created or protects any individual right. ...Moreover, incorporation of this putative individual right leads to a peculiar outcome: It would prohibit precisely what the Establishment Clause was intended to protect--state establishments of religion. ...Nevertheless, the potential right against federal establishments is the only candidate for incorporation." - Justice Thomas, Elk Grove v Newdow
Precisely. The passage of the first wave of gun-control laws by ex-confederate states in order to disarm the freedmen (Hey, you ever try to get blood stains out of white sheets? It's a bitch!) was specifically cited on the floor of Congress as one of the abuses that would be prohibited by the new Fourteenth Amendment.
Incorporation of the First Amendment OUGHT to have aimed to protect the free exercise of religion, since the State establishments no longer existed. How the court decided that the language served to abolish those same establishments that it was intended to protect is hard to understand. I don't get much help from the court cases, since they are all over the place. My concclusion that the judges had it in their minds to federalize the public schools and the best way to do this was to secularize them. This way you could pretend that there are no real differences between students in Massachusetts and students in Mississippi.