I don't necessarily disagree with you as to what I'd LIKE it to say. I'm talking about what it DOES say.
The first 10 amendments say "CONGRESS shall make no law ..." etc. By themselves, prior to the 14th amendment, they (like the rest of federal Constitution) talk about what the FEDERAL government may and may not do. You seem to acknowledge this when you write "Federal law and what the federal government may do is unchanged by [the 14th]".
For 76 years, the Constitution limited only the feds, and everybody was pretty clear about that fact. 76 years later, the 14th put two limitations on the states. The 14th says, in plain English, that states may not abridge the rights of "citizens of the United States" (the Bill of Rights). It's right there, it says "citizens of the United States" get protection from state government abuses. What part of "citizens of the United States" do you not understand? It then goes on to say the one thing states must do regarding "all persons" (non-citizens) - they must have due process (a hearing, with a lawyer, etc.).
> And Federal law trumps any State ones, so the first ten stand as the ultimate law of the land.
Since you were just talking about "the first ten", read the tenth amendment. It's a sentence or two, easy to read. That's one of several places in the Constitution where it makes clear that the states delegate specific powers to the feds - it's the states who have the power, and they allow the feds to act under a grant of power from the states, not the other way around.
> the 14th somehow takes away rights enumerated in the first ten ...
> You also seem to entirely miss the framing of the document, what "natural", "inalienable", and "all men" fundamentally mean, and the part where the people grant the power to the government, which presupposes that the natural rights are inherent before any governmental construct is created
See the problem there? You're supposing that the Bill of Rights grants rights, in order to argue that the 14th can't take them away. As you correctly state, the rights existed before the Constitution. The first 10 amendments bar the feds from VIOLATING those (pre-existing) rights. Seventy-six years later, the 14th amendment barred the STATES from violating the rights "of citizens of the United States". Neither CREATES rights. The first ten say the feds can't legally violate rights, the 14th says the sates can't legally violate the rights _of_citizens_. Lest anyone think that the authors merely forgot to mention non-citizens, the second sentence of the 14th then says that all people get DUE PROCESS (only).
If you think about it in certain practical terms, this makes perfect sense. Citizens have the right to bear arms (5th amendment). Guests who are Syrian nationals don't necessarily need the right to bear arms while they are visiting here. The revolution was fought, in part, about "taxation without representation". Does that mean foreign visitors don't have to pay any taxes, no sales taxes, no income taxes for H1-B visitors? Nope, visitors to a place don't have exactly the same rights.