The text of 14A most certainly does not "incorporate" the BOR as applying against the states. Any such incorporation ("selective incorporation") was achieved via judicial activism and findings of "substantive due process" - yet another fiction.
My understanding of the original intent of 14A was to force states to treat citizens equally (blacks and whites for example) - even in a state's appication and enforcement of seemingly unfair state law (no person shall hold office unless he believes in God for example).
Help me here...
I understand the BOR to be a limitation on federal government.
How would natural rights, enumerated in the constitution, be subject to violation by other government entities?
Wouldn't the "privileges or immunities" clause explicitly extend the protection of the constitution?