In the 1860 U.S. Presidential Election, Stuart supported the Constitutional Union Party and its candidate, John Bell (a former Whig who had represented Tennessee in the U.S. Congress). Bell won a majority of Virginia votes, although he ultimately received fewer votes than either major party candidate. As the United States divided into two hostile camps after President Abraham Lincoln's election, seven lower Southern states began establishing the Confederacy beginning in December 1860. Augusta County voter elected Unionists Stuart, John Brown Baldwin (his brother-in-law) and George Baylor to represent them in the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861. He voted with the anti-secession majority on the initial vote on April 4. Stuart, William B. Preston and George W. Randolph as a special Virginia delegation traveled to Washington, D.C. and met President Lincoln on April 12 after the surrender of Fort Sumter. Finding Lincoln firm in his resolve to hold the federal forts in the South, the three men returned to Richmond, Virginia on April 15. Two days later, the secession resolution again came before the convention. All three Augusta County delegates again voted against it, but it passed and was ratified by voters. On June 14, 1861, Stuart was among those signing the ceremonial secession ordinance. Stuart then proposed amendments to Virginia's Constitution of 1851, which he thought too democratic. Stuart blamed unrestrained democratic practices in free states for Lincoln's election and also criticized the North's free public schools. However, Virginia voters, on March 13, 1862, rejected the committee's proposal, which would have removed the popular election of the governor and reorganized the judiciary.