Before the infamous dred scott and cruikshank decisions, there was zero reason to think or believe that the bill of rights only applied to the federal government. An individual doesn't have inalienable rights that the federal government can't intrude upon, but the states can freely do so as long as it's not in their state constitutions. That ideology is patently absurd. The reason that a constitution is made is to enumerate powers to the government, not tell the people what rights they've been given.(since 'the people' have all their rights)
The ONLY reason that the incorporation doctrine was invented by the supreme court was so the individual states could still have their 'black codes' that the feds could not jack with. This was the cruikshank case in 1876. It was AFTER a black man named Ed Johnson was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death but lynched when his execution had been stayed pending appeal. The only time the Supreme Court presided over a trial, one Sheriff Joseph Shipp, for complicity in the lynching which denied a constitution right, the right of due process, to a black man. The first time the USSC applied the bill of rights against the states, starting the incorporation doctrine.
For a better read of this history, go
Here