But with the exception of these and a few other restrictions, the entire domain of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States, as above defined, lay within the constitutional and legislative power of the States, and without that of the Federal government. 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?...The argument we admit is not always the most conclusive which is drawn from the consequences urged against the adoption of a particular construction of an instrument. But when, as in the case before us, 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; the argument has a force that is irresistible, in the absence of language which expresses such a purpose too clearly to admit of doubt.
We are convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress which proposed these amendments, nor by the legislatures of the States which ratified them.
United States Supreme Court, SLAUGHTER-HOUSE CASES, 83 U.S. 36 DECEMBER, 1872
Judicial incorporation has been through the due process clause.
The court was engaging in word games in order to set up a straw man. The clear meaning of the quoted statement (and other, similar, statements during the ratification debate) was to establish a minimum standard of state protection of "privileges and immunities" (i.e. they had to cover at least the same ground as Amendments I-VIII of the federal Constitution). This is not the same thing as a complete transfer of the entire issue from state to federal jurisidction, just as the establishment of minimum standards for business conduct (i.e. prohibitions of fraud, breach of contract, etc) are not the same thing as government micromanagement.