Charles Pinckney opposed direct election of the president, arguing that “[t]he most populous States by combining in favor of the same individual will be able to carry their points.” This statement cannot, however, be taken at face value. Throughout the Convention Pinckney had voted with the large states, as had the rest of the South Carolina delegation. South Carolina saw itself as a large state. The issue here was not population, but the voting population. With slaves comprising half the people of South Carolina, Pinckney could not afford to support the direct election of the president.
Hugh Williamson of North Carolina was less coy than Pinckney. He bluntly noted that the South could not support popular election: “The people will be sure to vote for some man in their own State, and the largest State will be sure to succeed. This will not be Virginia. However. Her slaves will have no suffrage.” This was a critical observation. If the president was directly elected by the people, then southerners, especially Virginians, might not get elected. Virginia had the largest population of any state, but about 40 percent of its people were slaves and none of them could vote.
After this debate, the Convention rejected popular election of the president, with only Pennsylvania supporting it. The next day, the delegates rejected the idea of the legislature choosing the president because if he were eligible for reelection, he would be “absolutely dependent” on the legislature. This system would destroy the separation of powers that the delegates wanted to build into the new constitution.
Thus, the delegates had to find another method of electing the president. On July 19, 1787, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut proposed “electors” appointed by the state legislatures. Under Ellsworth’s plan these would be apportioned on the basis of population, and thus the small states would have no special advantage.
At this point, James Madison, a slaveholding Virginian, weighed in. The most influential delegate, Madison argued that “the people at large” were “the fittest” to choose the president. But “one difficulty […] of a serious nature” made election by the people impossible. Madison noted that the “right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes.” Thus Madison favored the creation of the Electoral College.