Of course, it may also be that Bingham was something of an "eccentric" in his views. If you're correct that he believed the Bill of Rights had ALWAYS applied to the states (which it absolutely didn't) then it's not surprising he would claim the same thing after the 14th was adopted.
Not a single level of government seems to have agreed with him. Are you aware of any legislation from that era related to this issue? Was there any effort by Congress to exercise its clear 14th Amendment enforcement power by passing a religious establishment bill of some sort?
Thats what Fairman and Berger claim. However, Curtis demonstrates pretty convincingly that Bingham was well within the mainstream of GOP thought at the time.
Not a single level of government seems to have agreed with him.
His GOP colleagues did. It's true SCOTUS had ruled otherwise, but they viewed that ruling much the same way we view Roe v. Wade.
Are you aware of any legislation from that era related to this issue? Was there any effort by Congress to exercise its clear 14th Amendment enforcement power by passing a religious establishment bill of some sort?
Establishment of Religion wasn't high on their list of priorities, and they probably didn't think any states were guilty of establishment at the time. They were more concerned with issues like free speach. For example, they were very bitter about ante-bellum censorship of abolishionist literature in slave states and wanted to empower Congress to stop such attacks on fundamental rights by states.