There is an almost universal misconception about what the office of President is in the United States, and what the Electoral College exists for. The president was never intended to ever be a representative of the People, or to be elected by the People. That is what state senators and congressmen (the people who are elected by the people) are for. The president is elected by the representatives of the States, to be a fair, neutral, and acceptable (ideally) executor of the Constitution and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it, and to represent the United States internationally. The Electoral College was not made, even in part, to protect the interests of slave states; that was what nasty legislation such as the Three-Fifths Compromise existed for.
Uh, the Electoral College (due to the fact that it is *mostly* based on representation in the House) *incorporated* the three-fifths compromise. Anyway, you are right that the purpose of the Electoral College is widely misunderstood, but I would say you misunderstand it yourself. As I once pointed out in soc.history.what-if
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Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, favoring legislative election, argued
that "As the Salary of the Executive will be fixed, and he will not be
eligible a 2d. time, there will not be such a dependence on the
Legislature as has been imagined." He opposed direct election because it
would not only favor the large states but specifically the large
*northern* states; even as large a southern state as Virginia (and by
extension, the whole South), Williamson said, could not elect a President
because "Her slaves will have no suffrage."
http://books.google.com/books?id=n0oWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32 (Of course
theoretically the southern states could have gotten around this problem by
allowing the slaves to vote, confident that in those days of open voting,
the slaves would not dare to vote against their masters' choice. I doubt
that anyone seriously proposed this, though...)
The chief dispute at the Convention was not between advocates of direct
and indirect election of the president, but between advocates of popular
election (either direct or through an electoral college) and legislative
election. One might think that the advocates of legislative election
based their arguments on the idea that the legislature should be supreme,
but that was not really the case. The delegates quickly decided that the
president should be independent of the legislature, but almost until the
end of the Convention the small states still favored legislative election,
which they felt would be more beneficial to their states and, as
Williamson argued, not inconsistent with executive independence, given a
fixed salary for the president and no possibility of re-election. What
was ultimately decided on was a compromise satisfactory to the
legislative-election advocates, not only because the Electoral College was
based on legislative apportionment--with the resulting advantage to the
small states, especially thanks to the two electoral votes each state got
for its Senate representation--but also because it was widely assumed that
in most elections, no candidate would get a majority, and the race would
go into the House, to be decided on a one-delegation, one-vote basis.
Contrary to the widespread belief that the Electoral College was meant as
an "elitist" anti-democratic measure, the most avid supporters of the
Electoral College were the advocates of popular election. They felt that
the Electoral College was the closest one could get to a popular-election
plan that could actually pass the Convention, given that small states had
the balance of power there, and given the practical difficulties posed by
differences in electoral laws and conditions from state to state--and
especially the obvious difficulty pointed out by Williamson on how direct
elections would limit the power of the slave states. James Wilson who as
early as June 1 had called for popular election of the president, on June
2 called for election by electors chosen by the people, "but this was not
meant as a significant change and was never really considered as such by
the leading members of the Convention. The major alternatives were
legislative election versus some form of popular election, either direct
or indirect..." David K. Nichols, *The Myth of the Modern Presidency,* p.
40.
http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA40
Nichols notes that "It is also commonly assumed that the use of electors
was a product of the Framers' distrust of popular opinion. In support of
this claim we are often treated to quotations from delegates to the
convention such as George Mason who said 'It would be as unnatural to
refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people,
as it would be to refer a trial of colours to a blind man.' There is,
however, a major problem with using such statements to show the
antidemocratic character of the electoral college. The delegates who
expressed the deepest distrust of popular votes were delegates who
eventually opposed the Constitution, such as George Mason or Elbridge
Gerry, or those who favored election by the legislature, such as Roger
Sherman, Charles Pinkney, or George Mason...
"But what of Alexander Hamilton's argument in the *Federalist*? There
Hamilton claimed that the electoral college would refine popular opinion,
would prevent the worst aspects of popular opinion from operating in the
election of the President. Some delegates probably supported the
electoral college because they saw it as a check on popular opinion. But
it is interesting to note that Hamilton's argument in the *Federalist*
for the refining effect of the electoral college was not made at the
Constitutional Convention. Instead, Gouverneur Morris argued that the
extent of the nation would serve to refine popular choice. Morris
contended that although persons of dubious character and ability might be
elevated to office in a single district or state, they would be unlikely
to be elected by the nation as a whole. Only worthy candidates would have
a chance of gaining election from so large a constituency. For Morris it
was the size of the nation, and not the judgment of the electors, that
would screen unworthy candidates. Hamilton borrows Morris's language for
use in the *Federalist* but he substantially alters Morris's argument..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA43
Nichols notes that it is ironic that Morris, so often considered a
reactionary aristocrat, anticipates the concept, usually associated with
the Progressives, of a powerful popular executive, arguing in a July 19
speech that the people at large would be the best judge of presidential
preformance, and that "The executive magistrate should be the guardian of
the people, even of the lower classes, against legislative tyranny."
http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA44
Morris, as it turns out, was more perceptive than Hamilton (or than many
small-state delegates who wishfully thought that presidential races would
frequently be thrown into the House; Morris correctly predicted that this
would not be the case, arguing that under the new constitution with its
more powerful national government, men with national reputations would be
likely to arise, and people would vote for them rather than waste their
votes on local or regional favorites). The Electoral College never really
"screened" public opinion; the party system did that. Even as early as
1796, the first "faithless elector" provoked howls of outrage ("What, do I
choose Samuel Miles to determine for me whether John Adams or Thomas
Jefferson shall be President? No! I choose him to act, not to think.") and
even further back, in 1792, when the presidency was uncontested, the vice-
presidency was basically determined on party lines, with electors voting
for Adams or Clinton based on which party had the support of the voters or
legislatures that chose the electors. In short, from a *very* early time,
the Electoral College became an essentially popular election (admittedly
in a modified form), and arguably was intended as such from the beginning.
In fact, even the Anti-Federalists conceded the popular nature of the
Presidency. To some, that was part of the problem. Patrick Henry said,
"To me it appears that there is no check in that Government. The
President, Senators, and Representatives all immediately, or mediately,
are the choice of the people."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch11s13.html (Other
Anti-Federalists were alarmed by the prohibition of relgious tests for the
presidency: "For my part, in reviewing the qualifications necessary for a
President, I did not suppose that the pope could occupy the President's
chair. But let us remember that we form a government for millions not yet
in existence. I have not the art of divination. In the course of four or
five hundred years, I do not know how it will work. This is most certain,
that Papists may occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it. I see
nothing against it. There is a disqualification, I believe, in every state
in the Union--it ought to be so in this system."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a6_3s26.html )
