As the Confederacy formed after southern states began seceding from the Union following the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, the United States divided into two hostile camps and the sections moved toward open conflict. Richmond voters elected Randolph and fellow attorneys William H. McFarland and Marmaduke Johnson as their representatives to the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861. Despite Randolph's speech in favor of secession, the first secession vote failed (Randolph among the ayes, McFarland and Johnson among the nays). Randolph's brother Thomas Jefferson Randolph was one of the Albemarle County delegates. A special delegation, composed of G.W. Randolph, William B. Preston and Alexander H.H. Stuart, traveled to Washington, D.C. where they met newly inaugurated President Abraham Lincoln on April 12, 1861, the same day that South Carolina artillery militia fired at Fort Sumter. Finding the President firm in his resolve to hold the Federal forts in the South, the three men returned to Richmond on April 15. On April 18, the day after President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the Confederate show of force, the Convention approved a secession resolution, which was sent for voter approval at a referendum the following month.