"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualification requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."
Comment: The framers wanted the people to be represented in the House of Representatives (vs. the Senate which represented the States), and they wanted a direct link between the People and the government. As a result, every two Years the People were to choose the Members, not the State legislatures. Madison argues in The Federalist No. 52 that "it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured." Regarding the Electors - i.e., the People that have the right to vote the Members into the House of Representatives - the framers did not believe they could draft a single provision that would satisfy all States. Therefore, the framers were content with incorporating each State's own laws as to who had the right to vote, which was address within each State's constitution.
In The Federalist No. 52. Madison writes "The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. It was incumbent on the convention, therefore, to define and establish this right in the Constitution....The provision made by the convention appears, therefore, to be the best that lay within their option. It must be satisfactory to every State, because it is conformable to the standard already established, or which may be established, by the State itself. It will be safe to the United States, because, being fixed by the State constitutions, it is not alterable by the State governments, and it cannot be feared that the people of the States will alter this part of their constitutions in such a manner as to abridge the rights secured to them by the federal Constitution."
Primary Sources - The Heritage Guide to the Constitution; The Federalist Paper No 52.
Federalist Paper No 52
