[Sorry for the length of my responses, but the topic of the electoral college versus national popular vote deserves more than a superficial glance.]
> More small states empowered by the Electoral College were in the North...
Yes. The New York Times has it backwards, probably on purpose. The Southern states with the most slaves, or that had hopes of expanding to the west, were the ones that wanted representation based on population. Has The Times never heard of the Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan?
The main reason to have an electoral college is to have a country. The small states wouldn’t have joined the Union in the first place if the legislature and presidency had been based entirely on population. Likewise the United Nations (which has much less power over the people than a country does) wouldn’t exist if China and India could outvote us all. People won’t willingly give up their right to self determination and place their trust (and their fate) in large populations in distant places. That was true when the Constitution was ratified, and it’s true now.
The Constitution says, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress...” That formula represents a compromise between the large and small states, with the Representatives being based on population and the Senators based on equal representation for each state.
An understanding of the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan would invalidate the Times thesis that the power disproportionate to population given to the smaller states in the electoral college was for the purpose of protecting slavery. The electoral college is a reflection of the bicameral legislature with equal power being given to the Senate, which is not based on population. (If the electoral college isn’t fair, then why aren’t they calling for abolishment of the Senate too?)
It was the Virginia Plan, from representatives of what was then the most populous state (and a slave state) that proposed a legislature based entirely on population, with the Senate likewise reflecting the proportional population of the House. The plan from the northern state of New Jersey advocated the position of the small states.
“The New Jersey Plan (also widely known as the Small State Plan or the Paterson Plan) was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787.[1] The plan was created in response to the Virginia Plan, which called for two houses of Congress, both elected with apportionment according to population.[2] The less populous states were adamantly opposed to giving most of the control of the national government to the more populous states, and so proposed an alternative plan that would have kept the one-vote-per-state representation under one legislative body from the Articles of Confederation.” [Wikipedia] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Plan
“At the time of the convention, the South was growing more quickly than the North, and Southern states had the most extensive Western claims. South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia were small in the 1780s, but they expected growth, and thus favored proportional representation. New York was one of the largest states at the time, but two of its three representatives (Hamilton being the exception) favored an equal representation per state, as part of their desire to see maximum autonomy for the states.” [Wikipedia] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
Might I use your post as partial fodder for mt text regarding the EC?
True, the NYTimes almost certainly DID declare it “backwards” deliberately!
The compromise of discounting the slave population to REDUCE the influence of slave states DID permit BOTH slave and free states to join the republic. No compromise = NO united States. Which is probably also the NYTimes’ position.