And its worth noting that, when reading the Congressional Globe, Bingham's references to the BOR are always written "bill of rights"...small "b" and small "r"
Bingham never once before ratification of the 14th Amendment specifically referred to the first 8 amendments...it was always a non-specific reference to a "bill of rights" that would be applied to the states. In fact, only one time in all the debates did anyone state that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to apply the first 8 amendments to the states...and that was Senator Howard. The use of the term "Bill of Rights" as specifically referring to the first 8 Amendments as we do today was not common in 1866...from what I've read, as of 1868, the Supreme Court had never used the phrase to refer to the first 8 Amendments. It was a more general term and I think you are correct when you say that Bingham intended to apply a "bill of rights"...specifically equal protection of "life, liberty and property" and the due process protections of the 5th Amendment.
Unless curiosity is correct that Professor Curtis has compiled evidence that there was substantial understanding among other congressmen and state legislatures that the first 8 Amendments were to be made applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment (and I've seen a tremendous amount of persuasive evidence to the contrary), it seems strange that we would all willingly accept such a transformation of the US Constitutional structure in the absence of clear and unequivocal language to that effect.
That's an excellent point that I hadn't really thought about, but reference to the first ten amendments collectively as **THE** Bill of Rights may be a more modern phraseology. At the time the 14th Amendment was being debated, there were only three other amendments in the Constitution beyond the original ten. It's doubtful that much effort was put into differentiating those ten from the other three in most discourse.
You're thus almost certainly correct that Bingham was referring to the 14th incorporating **A** bill of rights (i.e., a list of rights) which states would be obliged to respect. That makes a ton of sense. You're surely correct about this, and it would explain things better than my theory in earlier posts that they were speaking generally about the Bill of Rights. Instead, they were likely speaking of **A** bill of rights, by which they meant the rights specified in the 14th itself, not the first ten amendments Bill of Rights as we today understand them.
That would also explain why A) There was no firestorm debate over imposing the Establishment Clause on the states (as there surely would have been over such a radical change), B) states didn't act as if any changes had been made on religious issues when the 14th became law (no rush to either comply or evade), C) Congress never considered a single piece of legislation to enforce the Establishment Clause, though they had the power of enforcement under the 14th, and D) When a crusade erupted a few years later to end parochial school aid, it led to calls for a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, not congressional legislation under the 14th (even though the latter would have been easier to pass if the 14th had incorporated the Establishment Clause).