Many of the Founding Fathers were leery of big centralized government and were all questioning how big was too big. They wanted more power in the hands of the people and wanted more power by the states and that is why those things not in the constitution belong to the states. In order to sign I think it was 8 or so states that would only sign on "if" they could secede when it was not helping the state they represented. In the war of 1812, long before the Civil War I think it was New York that almost seceded then. They had a house that was determined by popular vote to be closer to the people. Then the senate before the 17th was the appointee chosen by each district to represent the state. Before the 17th it was NOT a popular vote, but was much closer to the goals of the electoral college in that all the segments of urban/rural were to be represented...not just the major oxygen starved population in the cities as @SIBoiler2 stated. So now the House has major influence by the urban areas and the senate was compromised to cater to urban areas due to the popular vote as well and so now, those with an eye to see can see, even without cheating, the extra influence of the urban areas by not only the house, but the senate. If that wasn't enough you now hear of packing the courts and getting rid of the electoral college as though the 100% control still has a way to go.
Many suffering from neurosis living amongst us wanting to control every aspect they don't like...
