You have oversimplified the history. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived, there was considerable confusion about what it actually meant for state laws. And it took a long time for the very complex details to get ironed out. That is why the case I pointed to was nearly a century after the 14th amendment was passed.
> You have oversimplified the history. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived, there was considerable confusion about what it actually meant for state laws. And it took a long time for the very complex details to get ironed out. That is why the case I pointed to was nearly a century after the 14th amendment was passed.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I was just placing a hard earliest point where the Bill of Rights could apply to the states, not saying that it was immediately interpreted as such as soon as it was ratified.
See http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/03/12/the-14th-amendmen... for a detailed (and admittedly somewhat opinionated) history of this topic. And see http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14.html to start digging in on exactly how complex the current interpretation of the 14th amendment actually is.