What the framers wrote bears only a rough relationship to what we have now. The Electors were selected by the States, in whatever way the States wanted. Direct popular vote, by the States legislature, was up to them. Originally the Electors were voting for two candidates, both for President. (One had to be from a State other than their own.)

A candidate who won a majority of the electors' votes became President. The runner up became Vice President. If no one got a majority, the House chose the President and the Senate the Vice President from the top finishers. This election by the House absolutely did favor the smaller States, because each State has one vote in the House. (And still does - Vermont and California both get one vote.)

But that's the original process, not quite what we have now.

A little of both.

The Framers weren’t worried about the Larger States having more influence over the Small States, or with the Southern States holding more influence over the Northern States.

Instead, the Framers were more worried that the Legislature would have influence over the Executive, and that the Federal Government, while still being elected by the People, would be dominated by the Legislature.

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#The Virginia Plan When the Framers met to discuss amending the Articles of Confederation, Edmund Randolph opened up the Convention on May 29th, 1787 by submitting a list of 15 Resolutions, known to us as the Virginia Plan. Keep that open in a second tab, because it's going to be important to us later on.

The Virginia Plan called for a "National Executive" and Resolved;

that a National Executive be instituted; to be chosen by the National Legislature for the term of —; to receive punctually, at stated times, a fixed compensation for the services rendered, in which no increase nor diminution shall be made, so as to affect the magistracy existing at the time of increase or diminution; and to be ineligible a second time; and that, besides a general authority to execute the national laws, it ought to enjoy the executive rights vested in Congress by the Confederation.

The Virginia Plan called for an independent Executive, but one chosen by the Legislature, in keeping with the Articles of Confederation and the supremacy of the Congress.

#The Legislature and the Executive On May 30th, while the Convention was discussing how the First Branch (later the House of Representatives) was to be elected, James Madison spoke up and stated how he believed;

"the popular election of one branch of the National Legislature as essential to every plan of free government. He observed, that in some of the States one branch of the Legislature was composed of men already removed from the people by an intervening body of electors. That, if the first branch of the General Legislature should be elected by the State Legislatures, the second branch elected by the first, the Executive by the second together with the first, and other appointments again made for subordinate purposes by the Executive, the people would be lost sight of altogether; and the necessary sympathy between them and their rulers and officers too little felt."

In this, we see that the Framers had no objection to the election of the Executive by the Legislature, as long as the Legislature itself was elected by the People.

On June 1st, the Convention proceeded to the seventh Resolution, that a National Executive be instituted, to be chosen by the National Legislature for the term of — years, &c., to be ineligible thereafter, to possess the Executive powers of Congress, &c.^

Some of the Framers, like Charles Pinckney, were supportive of the idea of an Executive, but were worried that the Executive would become an elected monarch. Others, like Roger Sherman, viewed the Executive as nothing more than a Prime Minister.

The Convention could not agree on whether the Executive should be one man or a council of men, and moved on to discuss the Executive's election.

In this discussion, two schools of thought emerged. James Wilson stated that;

"in theory he was for an election by the people. Experience, particularly in New York and Massachusetts, showed that an election of the first magistrate by the people at large was both a convenient and successful mode. The objects of choice in such cases must be persons whose merits have general notoriety."

Roger Sherman, in contrast, favored;

"appointment by the Legislature, and for making him absolutely dependent on that body, as it was the will of that which was to be executed. An independence of the Executive on the supreme Legislature, was, in his opinion, the very essence of tyranny, if there was any such thing."

On June 2nd, Mr. Wilson made a motion that now sounds similar to the ratified Article II procedure;

"that the executive magistracy shall be elected in the following manner: That the States be divided into — districts and that the persons qualified to vote in each district for members of the first branch of the National Legislature elect — members for their respective districts to be electors of the executive magistracy; that the said electors of the executive magistracy meet at —, and they, or any — of them, so met, shall proceed to elect by ballot, but not out of their own body, — person — in whom the executive authority of the National Government shall be vested."

#Reconsideration Even moreso than the election of Congress, the election of President was one of the most divisive issues at the Convention. The delegates frequently went back and forth between different modes of electing the Executive, and the issue kept being postponed until the very last moment on September 4th.

###The Leftovers On September 4th, David Brearly made a partial report on behalf of the Committee, which stated;

After the word ‘Excellency,’ in Section 1, Article 10, to be inserted: ‘He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and together with the Vice President chosen for the same term, be elected in the following manner, viz: Each State shall appoint, in such manner as its Legislature may direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole number of Senators and members of the House of Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Legislature. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; and they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each, which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit, sealed, to the seat of the General Government, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in that House, open all the certificates, and the votes shall be then and there counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of that of the Electors; and if there be more than one who have such a majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the Senate shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; but if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the Senate shall choose by ballot the President; and in every case after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes shall be Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them the Vice President. The Legislature may determine the time of choosing and assembling the Electors, and the manner of certifying and transmitting their votes.’

Mr. Randolph and Mr. Pinckney wanted an explanation as to why the mode of electing the Executive had been changed.

Mr. Morris, on behalf of the Committee, gave the following six reasons;

1. The dangers of intrigue and faction, if the appointment was made by the Legislature.
2. The inconvenience of an ineligibility required by that mode, in order to lessen its evils.
3. The difficulty of establishing a court of impeachments, other than the Senate, which would not be so proper for the trial, nor the other branch, for the impeachment of the President, if appointed by the Legislature.
4. Nobody had appeared to be satisfied with an appointment by the Legislature.
5. Many were anxious even for an immediate choice by the people.
6. The indispensable necessity of making the Executive independent of the Legislature.

Mr. Morris stated that;

As the electors would vote at the same time, throughout the United States, and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided. It would be impossible, also, to corrupt them. A conclusive reason for making the Senate, instead of the Supreme Court, the judge of impeachments, was, that the latter was to try the President, after the trial of the impeachment.

###Bypassing the Electoral College The Framer's biggest worry was that the Executive would be a slave to the Legislature, and this had been avoided. Ironically however, many of them were worried that the Electoral College would be bypassed, and the election would end up in the Legislature's hands anyway.

Colonel Mason supported the idea on the basis that the danger of cabal and corruption had been avoided, but believed that;

nineteen times in twenty the President would be chosen by the Senate, an improper body for the purpose.

On September 5th, when the Convention resumed discussion, Mr. Pinckney agreed with Colonel Mason;

arguing, first, that the electors will not have sufficient knowledge of the fittest men and will be swayed by an attachment to the eminent men of their respective States. Hence, secondly, the dispersion of the votes would leave the appointment with the Senate, and as the President’s reappointment will thus depend on the Senate, he will be the mere creature of that body. Thirdly, he will combine with the Senate against the House of Representatives. Fourthly, this change in the mode of election was meant to get rid of the ineligibility of the President a second time, whereby he will become fixed for life under the auspices of the Senate.

On September 6th, the Convention resumed discussion again, and agreed to the motion of Mr. Sherman;

to strike out the words, “The Senate shall immediately choose,” &c. and insert: “The House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President, the members from each State having one vote.”

which passed with 10 states in favor, Delaware opposed.

Finally, the Electoral College had passed the Convention, guaranteeing an independent Executive.

I like to give people the chance to see with their own eyes what the primary source documents have to say. Thus, my use of the whole damn thing.

I give you Federalist #68. Here is where Hamilton presented the reasoning behind the creation of the Electoral College.

The take away for my students is usually that the Famers wanted to put as much distance between the common voters of the republic and the leaders they were selecting. The original Madisonian plan had the voters selecting the House of Representatives and nothing else.

As already stated, the house also would determine the winner of an election if there was no majority in the Electoral College, with each state, regardless of population, receiving one vote. Given today's distribution of population and demographic makeup of that population, the effects of this system put the states with smaller, mostly white populations firmly in the driver's seat. This is an unintended consequence of a system designed for very different times.

The Mode of Electing the President From the New York Packet. Friday, March 14, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.

Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.

All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.

The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.

The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.

PUBLIUS.

1 Vide FEDERAL FARMER.