Hugh, for God's sake...President Johnson was 1960s. 14th Amendment was 1860s. You're a hundred years off right there.
OK, since nobody seems to want to read my full exposition on the subject (link above), let me lay out what happened.
The story starts in 1833 with Barron v. Baltimore. Mr. Barron claimed (apparently correctly) that the city had screwed up his boat docks, and sued for an "unfair taking" under the Bill Of Rights. The US Supreme Court ruled that the BOR applied only to the Federal gov't, not the states. Barron got screwed. So did a hell of a lot of other people over the years, including us gunnies. Barron is STILL a problem for us, as we'll see.
Next step is the Dred Scott case, 1856. The US Supreme Court said that racist laws were OK in the US because we had always been a racist nation. Actually true, if immoral as hell. The way they phrased the matter was important: they claimed that blacks lacked the "privileges and immunities of US citizenship", and used the phrase "privileges and immunities" over 30 times. They exhaustively defined the term:
For if they [(blacks)] were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them [(blacks)] from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
As you can see, the "privileges and immunities of US citizenship" defined in 1856 are basically "the Bill Of Rights and then some" (note a "right to travel without pass or passport") or possibly "the traditional rights of free Englishmen". Whatever - it includes the RKBA in it's most radical form: the right travel armed "in companies".
In the US Civil War of 1861-65, the huge stacks of dead bodies and the South's defeat did NOT overturn the core holding of Dredd Scott: that racist laws were OK. Post-war, Southern states and localities enacted "black codes" to strip blacks of all manner of civil rights, the right to arms being THE most common.
In 1868, Ohio Congressman John Bingham wrote and rammed through the 14th Amendment. The opening clauses were the most important:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Let's review it step by step:
1) Blacks are now citizens.
2) DRED SCOTT IS OVERTURNED. The "privileges and immunities" language is taken right out of that case and turned on it's head.
The only way anybody can overturn a US Supreme Court constitutional decision is by amending the constitution.
3) We then have "due process" and "equal protection" sections tacked on too but the 14th would work just fine with just Dred Scott overturned via the privileges and immunities clause.
In ALL subsequent decisions right down to the present, the US Supreme Court has committed a fraud. They have claimed not to know what "privileges and immunities" are and have denied that they're connected to civil rights.
In cases between 1872 and 1900, the Supreme Court completely gutted the 14th Amendment, rendering it utterly worthless.
In 1907, the court had it's nose rubbed in how completely disgusting state-level "justice systems" had become in the only criminal trial ever heard by the Supreme Court: Shipp. I believe this case at least influenced what happened next:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/shipp.html
Across the 20th Century, the Supremes re-discovered the "due process" and "equal protection" clauses of the 14th, and brought them back from the dead.
Via the due process clause, the court found various civil rights to be "fundamental to due process" and therefore "selectively incorporated" one at a time against state interference, across literally generations. First Amendment free speech came first, followed by most of the courtroom protections (save one) and across most of the rest of the Bill Of Rights.
So far only TWO personal civil rights mentioned in the BOR haven't been selectively incorporated:
* Right to arms under the 2nd.
* Right to a grand jury indictment under the 5th.
(Wait...add another, "quartering of troops" under the 3rd but that's a non-issue...)
So that's where we stand.
A number of Supreme Court justices across the 20th century and possibly on today's court have argued, sometimes passionately, against the fraud in ignoring what "privileges and immunities" are. The P&I clause should have done TOTAL incorporation of the Bill Of Rights against the states at one fell swoop but we never had five at once with the moral fiber to say so.
John Bingham wasn't shy or misleading about what he was up to: he spoke fervently about overturning Dred Scott and allowing blacks to arm themselves against criminals both in government and private, including the pro-Klan just beginning to develop a fashion sense running to white bedsheets with eye-holes.
John Bingham led a civil rights movement in the 1850s/60s that tried to accomplish far more than Dr. King and his supporters 100 years later. Thanks to corrupt judges his name is all but forgotten.
