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The Black Legislative Leaders Network recently included me on a panel about the intersection of civil rights and federalism. The group recognizes that state sovereignty can be used to protect civil rights. My remarks included historical examples, like the abolition of slavery in Northern states and the expansion of political rights for women by New Jersey in the 1790s and Wyoming in the 1870s. An ongoing example is the Electoral College.

Protecting people who live in small states was the original purpose of the Electoral College. The Constitutional Convention initially considered a parliamentary system, with Congress choosing the president, but many delegates objected that this would combine legislative and executive power. Some delegates from high-population states like Pennsylvania and Virginia wanted a direct national vote, but delegates from smaller states feared their interests would be ignored. This conflict led to the creation of the Electoral College in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

For more than 200 years, the Electoral College has functioned as it does today: citizens in each state cast votes for a slate of presidential electors based on the candidate those electors intend to support. Winning the presidency requires winning across many states, which means running many different campaigns to many different sets of voters. This pushes political parties and their candidates to understand and address the interests of many diverse groups of Americans.

Strong evidence of this comes from recent history. In the 1950s, Southern Democrats pushed to abolish the Electoral College to reduce the growing influence of black Americans. They saw that the Electoral College was pushing the Democratic Party to appeal to black voters in states like Illinois and New Jersey. So did U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, who defended the Electoral College because it forced the political parties to build broader coalitions.

An attempt to end the Electoral College in the 1970s was opposed by civil rights leaders. The reason was explained by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, then a professor of political science at Georgetown University:

The smaller the electoral unit, the more important are all the people and groups which compose it. The Polish vote is more important in Milwaukee than in Wisconsin, and more important in Wisconsin than in the nation. Black, Jewish, and Latin votes in New York are much more important now than they would be if the state’s votes were aggregated with those of a nationwide electorate.

In other words, by having 51 state (and DC) elections instead of just one national election, subgroups of voters get more attention. Republicans need Hispanic votes to win states like Arizona and Texas. Democrats need support from gun owners and white working-class voters in Rust-Belt states. Even lobstermen in Maine get noticed. Any group that might help to win just one state’s electoral votes winds up on the political map—and every member of that group benefits, wherever they happen to live.

The Electoral College nudges political parties to be national, not regional. It rewards them when they bring together diverse coalitions of Americans. This helped bind up the nation after the Civil War. It continues to provide an incentive for parties and candidates to respect minority groups. While other forces try to push us apart, the Electoral College helps to hold us together.