The original arrangement was that the seperate and independant States|Colonies were seperate and independant States|Colonies working together in a collective Union that wouldn't overrule or take away from the seperate and individual State|Colony part.
Like a neighbourhood action group, or twelve distinct farming families working together on an agricultural Bulk Harvesting collective, etc.
The decisions of the collective were to be made (hey, check the paperwork, it's still around) on a weighted vote per State basis .. it was never the case that if one member bred exponentially and had way more kids than all the others put together then that member State would get all the decision making power.
Clearly time has marched on and people now think of The United States of America as a single country .. it's not, nor is the European Union.
But maybe it is time to update the paperwork and common rules?
The original arrangement was the articles of confederation, and explicitly weak federal government which was made as a loose federation of fairly powerful states, each allowed to mostly do their own thing, with a federal government that did as little as possible.
It didn't even make it ten years before it would have died.
The Constitution of the United States was written entirely to give the Federal government actual power and control and teeth. It was very clear that signing up to the United States meant individual states significantly giving away their power. That's why the constitution had so many extreme compromises, especially to slave states.
The US constitution entirely exists to codify the US being one nation.
The paperwork and common rules were updated after the dissolution of the Continental Congress in 1789. But it seems a few people still haven't gotten the memo.
> They should get to influence national decisions based on their population
That is exactly mob rule. Why should any group of people be allowed to enforce its will on another group simply because they are more numerous? If there are no systems put into place to limit and balance the will of the majority then they are perfectly capable of running amok. How do you think things like lynchings and pogroms happen? A majority decides the minority is to blame for some evil and they happily ignore laws and morals because they have come to a unanimous decision. The same thing can happen at national scale.
Imagine if you applied your population rule to the U.N., what a farce that would be.
A simple majority vote only works in relatively small groups where all of the participants are on roughly equal standing and even then it's a good idea to have some secondary authority re-evaluate the decision and ensure everyone is acting in good faith and not simply forming temporary alliances in order to rob some weaker group and divide the spoils.
