"James Madison made the following comment about the Senate:
In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability.
— Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787"Just some quick googling, not a vetted source: http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/US_History_reader/Chapt...
Those populations looked similar and could have gone either way earlier (hindsight being 20/20, major industrial centers could have emerged in the south). The popular vote in that case may have never led to a Lincoln.
In other words, just because there’s a giant population in South with certain regional values, doesn’t mean you get to win every election. The same is true for coastal cities in America now. I do think certain states need more electoral votes added at this point like New York and California.
The same way you can fuck them with the popular vote today is the same way they can fuck you with it in the future.
I’m reminded of Churchill’s famous aphorism that Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others which have been tried. Yes, it can go badly but it’s still the least bad choice.
Under the electoral college system, states actually come into play. There could be a case where a state grows large enough in population to get 51% of the electoral votes. If that state had a winner take all system, then that state would choose every president. It would 100% dominate, non of the other states would matter.
The electoral college is truly a terrible system, unless the founders wanted Florida to decide every election.