As you obviously know, you are exactly right. I was active in politics in 1964 and before and followed all of the debate on the ‘64 civil rights bill. It was the opinion of Goldwater, Reagan, and other conservatives that all those rights were protected in the US Constitution, if enforced, and that to pass a separate civil rights law would make distinctions and create degrees of freedom. Plus, they thought the bill was redundant.
For example, they viewed the bill much as the “Hate Crimes” laws are seen by conservatives today. The end result of murder is death, whether hate was involved or not, and hate crimes are applied or not enforced in a bigoted manner; for instance, take the horrific rape/torture/murders and dismemberment seen in the recent Knoxville, TN court cases, where hate was absolutely a factor in two brutal murders, and hate crimes laws were not enforced because the victims were white!
yep...and the fat black girl who was there and did participate was just acquitted