Should California Threaten Secession To Abolish Electoral College?

[eniwetok]

4. The EC was created to benefit whites in slave states.

For a while I'd considered Hamilton's arguments in Federalist 68 to be the reason for the EC. But after much reflection I think it was designed to conceal the reason for creating an antidemocratic method of electing presidents . The real reason can be found in the minutes of the so-called Constitutional Convention. Here's Madison on July 19th 1787. He says the popular vote is best but there's a problem with it...

MADISON: The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. 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. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_719.asp