Was it the purpose of the fourteenth amendment, by the simple declaration that no State should make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, to transfer the security and protection of all the civil rights which we have mentioned, from the States to the Federal government? And where it is declared that Congress Shall have the power to enforce that article, was it intended to bring within the power of Congress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the States?
…these consequences are so serious, so far-reaching and pervading, so great a departure from the structure and spirit of our institutions; when the effect is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character; when, in fact, it radically changes the whole theory of the relations of the State and Federal governments to each other and of both these governments to the people…(Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 67, 69).
What is the basis for saying that the framers of the 14th Amendment intended it to apply only to former slaves? I saw nothing in the Senate debates nor in the text of the Amendment itself to draw that conclusion.
J. Thomas is correct. Corfield reflected the understanding of privileges and immunities in common to all citizens since Colonial times. Douglass v Stephens, 1821, is another case that demonstrates this point =>
The right of enjoying and defending life, without the privilege of protecting it by all the means which the law as well as nature, in extreme cases, furnishes, would be illusory to the last degree. Therefore, this privilege belongs to us, and, by the Constitution of the United States, to every other citizen of the United States in common with us.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a4_2_1s17.html