In 1861 he worked behind the scenes to enable Virginia's secession, remaining in the Senate because he could get information useful for the seceding states, a type of spy behind enemy lines. He and Virginia's other Senator, Robert Hunter, told the commissioners of the new Confederate states that Virginia would join the secession if Jefferson Davis were elected president of a Southern confederacy, but not if it were pro-slavery Alabama Fire-Eater William L. Yancey, seen in Virginia as extreme. Davis was chosen as president three days later.