It was solely due to the difficulty of 18th Century travel that Congressional, popular terms settled on two years rather than one. There was no way those evil dead white slave owners would have condoned six year elected terms for members of a small, exclusive enclave.
The first State constitutions leaned heavily on the “democratic” side, most with strong legislatures derived entirely from the people, and purposely weak governors. These popular State governments were unstable and abusive of property rights.
Our Framers knew the source of the troubles, the people, and corrected the problem at the national level with a Senate NOT derived from the people. That lesson was forgotten or ignored with the 17th Amendment.
Our “Senators,” of six year terms present a great threat to our liberties, one that our Framers understood. They are just as subject to the whims of the popular mob, and react in the same fashion as Congressmen.
We'll never know of course, but IMO the great social justice reform nonsense of the last seventy years would not have occurred absent the 17th.
You and I have corresponded on this topic before.
You once sent me a link to an article that explained it all.
It was an article called:
“Ulysses at the Mast-Democracy Federalism and the Sirens Song”.
I don’t know if it is still available out there on the interwebs somewhere.
In a nutshell, there were a handful of reasons posited for the reform such as:
-acute corruption in the appointment of US senators.
-chronic vacant seats in the US senate.
The 17th was supposed to remedy those perceived problems.
Ultimately the idea went through just simply because “the people” wanted to “feel” like they had more of a choice in senatorial elections.
This is not unlike the push today to have the president chosen by popular vote.
All simply another move on the chessboard by the progressives towards their idea of pure utopian democracy.