The person who first proposed an electoral college at the Constitutional Convention (James Wilson) was notable as one of the leading advocates for a direct at-large vote. James Madison and Gouverneur Morris, both instrumental in pushing for the adoption of an electoral college, also went on the record as favoring a popular vote to elect the president.

Those who were most vigorously opposed to allowing the citizens to directly elect the president (or, for that matter, any other federal office) were similarly vigorously opposed to the Electoral College system, notably including South Carolina’s delegation as a whole.