yep! the main opposition to popular election of the president had little to do with fear of “mob rule” and everything with specific political problems, #1 being “too much of the South’s population is enslaved and white southerners could never muster enough votes to elect a POTUS”
https://twitter.com/ositanwanevu/status/1353073135159971840
the electoral college as written in the constitution should be understood as an elaborate kludge tossed together at the last minute for the sake of just getting the whole thing done with
yes! so much of the argument about the selection of the president — and so much of the argument about the nature of the presidency — rested on the idea that Washington would be president for some indeterminate amount of time.
https://twitter.com/steelcityhitch/status/1353088447678984192
it’s why, when Washington began looking for an out in 1792, his cabinet flipped out and practically begged him to stay
i should say i’m probably overstating things a little with the kludge argument. early on in the convention when the question of presidential election first came up, a few delegates suggested electors. there was a theory behind it, regarding representation.
but for the most part the delegates postponed “how to choose a president” until they could no longer, and then tossed together a bunch of ideas that they figured would satisfy most concerns, and left it that since, again, Washington was going to be president anyway so who cares.
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