1. The founders plainly saw federalism as sufficient grounds to inhibit federal interference in certain state laws regarding the practice of slavery. To suggest that they would have reacted similarly to abortion, abhorrent as it may be as with slavery, is thus not entirely inconceivable.
2. The "incorporation" doctrine is an invention of modern judicial activism. It was explicitly repudiated by the founders themselves in the case I previously cited (Barron v. Baltimore). It was also repudiated immediately AFTER the adoption of the 14th amendment in the 1868 case of Twitchell v. Commonwealth, to wit:
"And this judgment has since been frequently reiterated, and always without dissent. That they "were not designed as limits upon the state governments in reference to their own citizens," but "exclusively as restrictions upon federal power" was declared in Fox v. Ohio to be "the only rational and intelligible interpretation which these amendments can have." And language equally decisive, if less emphatic, may be found in Smith v. State of Maryland and Withers v. Buckley. In the views thus stated and supported we entirely concur."
It stands to reason that had the 14th amendment been intended to incorporate the bill of rights as is now claimed, the Supreme Court would have been keenly aware of this intention for an amendment adopted less than a year prior yet they ruled the exact opposite, consistent with the founders.
3. You lost all subsequent credibility the moment that you quoted from the discredited and uncredentialed pseudo-historian David Barton's Wallbuilders website.
Well, fine, I understand you reject the 14th (I suspected that from the beginning) and you may if you wish rely upon your view of judicial activism to sustain that position, but the fact remains that the ultimate victory of incorporation demonstrates the power of the natural law dynamic that drove the constitutional project, and that dynamic, not incorporation per se, was my point.
As for Wallbuilders, I would be fascinated to know why you think it is important that you have “outed” Mr. Barton as a pseudo-historian. After all, if you will read my earlier post carefully, you will see I did not quote Mr. Barton at all, unless you count the placement of ellipses. All I did was quote the Founders directly. To which of these signatories to the Constitution do you direct your antipathy? Is Mr. Barton really the problem, or do you dismiss the quotes for their inconvenient content, using Mr. Barton’s controversiality as mere pretext?