The point of the electoral college was never to prevent the general public from voting and influencing the election; it was to make a different kind of candidate get elected: one who appeals to people who really know about politics and have time to think about the issues. Besides, it isn't necessary to create a special body of elected people just to make the votes slave-holding states count for more.

I do not understand why you do not trust the words of the authors of the Constitution in The Federalist Papers. They do not say the electoral college was created because of slaveholding states; they say this:

"the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."