>>>Are you saying that we are to gather the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted in 1868, from the spirit manifested in the debates at the time the Constitution was adopted in 1788? <<<
This is a serious debate. If, however, you are not being a wise a.., and truly fail to grasp the meaning of Jefferson's quote, let me give you some background...
Jefferson despised (and feared) what he considered were the unlimited powers given (inadvertently) to the Supreme Court by the framers (the Courts were supposed to be the inferior branch). Therefore, in his letter titled "THE SUPREME COURT AND THE CONSTITUTION", written to Justice William Johnson on June 12, 1823, he expressed his concern that the Supreme Court had advanced beyond its constitutional limitations -- that extra-judicial decisions were being used as precedent for subsequent extra-judicial decisions. He issued a warning that the interpretation of the constitution should always be derived from the original intent as manifested in the debates leading up to the text, rather than the interpretation of previous judicial decisions, which we call precedent.
Therefore, in the case of the 14th Amendment, you should ignore any and all subsequent judicial interpretations. Rather, you should study the debates leading up to the text of the 14th Amendment before interpreting the text.
Note that Jefferson despised the notion that Marbury vs. Madison was settled law, insisting it was merely a dissertation by John Marshall, and nothing else.
He wrote, "The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers. They were not lessoned yet by Cohen's case, nor aware of the slipperiness of the eels of the law. I ask for no straining of words against the General Government, nor yet against the States. I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market.
But the Chief Justice [John Marshall] says, "there must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere." True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress, or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force."