My understanding was that while yes the electoral college system did take place in an environment of racism and slavery with African Americans being considered 3/5 of a state’s population, that the electoral college was mainly established to be a protection from possible tyrannical leaders that could be chosen by a popular vote/so learned gentlemen could ensure the office would never be held by a demagogue under foreign influence. However I see many posts recently just saying the electoral college is racist. Is it a beautiful design to stop authoritarians from holding office and more to take a temperature of the sentiments of all the states, or was it just a racist tool that we should abolish?
While more can always be said, a similar question came up a few months ago, where I gave this answer linking to several other earlier answers by other users.
From /u/uncovered-history's answer linked in the answer above:
The Founders designed the system using the Electoral College because they had little faith that the Masses would consistently want the right person as president, so they created a system that could bypass democracy to instill leaders that the political elites approved of.
On the contrary, from /u/jelvinjs7's answer also linked in my answer above:
I think it's an error to say that it was really designed to do anything in particular. To quote historian John Roche, “The Framers did not in their wisdom endow the United States with a College of Cardinals—the electoral college was neither an exercise in applied Platonism nor an experiment in indirect government. It was merely a jerry-rigged improvisation which has subsequently been endowed with high theoretical content.”
In the answer provided by /u/AvTheMarsupial also linked in my initial link at the top of this post, they say there is "a little" truth to the angle that the Constitutional Convention delegates distrusted the masses, and also that there was also "a little" truth that it was designed to protect the small states from being dominated by the politics of larger states, but adds that there was another more direct reason:
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.
That user then gives a useful breakdown of the debates at the Convention, what was considered, and how it led to the Electoral College.
In my answer provided at the top of the post, I point out that it's also important to recognize that the Electoral College was criticized from the very start. If it was designed to do anything in particular, then whatever it was, opponents believed it thwarted the American ideal of democracy, so the more democratic-minded politicians of the United States' earliest years did work to make it less powerful. That may not have worked out in practice. Nevertheless, whatever its intention, the Electoral College has had its critics since the beginning, so it would be wrong to believe that the political elites of the time were all of one mind on the issue.