Stuart was admitted to the Virginia
bar in 1828 and soon became active in the
National Republican Party. He supported the unsuccessful campaign of
Henry Clay in the
1832 U.S. Presidential Election.
Delegate and Congressman Augusta County voters first elected Stuart as one of two men representing them in the
Virginia House of Delegates in 1836. Re-elected twice as a
Whig to what were then single-year terms (and a position which is still part-time), Stuart served on the Committee for Courts of Justice and also advocated internal improvements (the
James River Canal as well as railroads). Although recommendations in his critical report concerning deficiencies in such improvements were not adopted, during 1838 Stuart became a junior member of the Committee on Roads and Internal Navigation. From 1850, Stuart served as
United States Secretary of the Interior under new President
Millard Fillmore for three years. That Department had been founded on the suggestion of one of his fellow counsel in the Wheeling Bridge case, and neither of his predecessors had lasted long. The department which consolidated the
United States General Land Office, the
Office of Indian Affairs, and the
U.S. Patent Office also worked to resolve the boundary with Mexico. Stuart didn't change the culture of political patronage, but at least gave rules and standards to the political appointments and removed some of the administrative chaos until resigning as President Fillmore's term ended in 1853. At a speech before the Central Agricultural Society of Virginia, Stuart fully accepted slavery as in the best interest of Southern agricultural prosperity and argued it benefited the Northern economy as well as that emancipation would lead to violence. 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.
American Civil War After Virginia seceded, Stuart declined to hold any Confederate or Virginia office after his state senate term ended, and he did not support the
Wheeling Convention, which ultimately led to the creation of
West Virginia. However, he supported relief for Virginia's soldiers. Furthermore, two relatives served as Confederate officers: his brother-in-law
John Brown Baldwin and his cousin,
J. E. B. Stuart. A. H. H. Stuart also specifically declined appointment to a peace commission in March 1864.
Post-war About a month after Virginia's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, on May 8, 1865, Stuart chaired a mass meeting in Staunton, which adopted resolutions asking the U.S. Army's protection and declaring the populace not in rebellion. Stuart also took oaths of allegiance to the United States and to the loyal government of Virginia. Because he had never held Confederate office, Stuart was eligible for election and was again elected U.S. Representative in 1865. However, despite presenting credentials as a member-elect to the
39th Congress in 1865, he was denied a seat as were other newly elected Southern delegates, because Virginia was not yet readmitted to the Union, pending its adoption of a new state constitution outlawing slavery, among other measures. As the University of Virginia commencement speaker in June 1866, Stuart lamented the end of Old Virginia. He also opposed
Congressional Reconstruction. In 1866, Stuart was a delegate to the
National Convention of Conservatives at
Philadelphia. In 1867, Stuart criticized the
Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868, which was elected with universal suffrage and included black delegates. Shortly after it convened, Stuart became chairman of the
Committee of Nine, which lobbied the new president
Ulysses S. Grant, and managed to secure separate votes for the new state constitution, which passed overwhelmingly, and anti-Confederate measures, which failed. Thus, Virginia was restored to the
Union in 1870. Augusta County voters again elected Stuart to represent them in the
Virginia General Assembly in 1873, and he served on the Committee on Finance. His re-election was contested, but he won the second vote and served from 1874 to 1877. Stuart also served as rector of the
University of Virginia from 1874 to 1882 and from 1886 to 1887, during which he came to accept public education but realized the funding problems (the institution received no funding from 1882 to 1884, and all its officers were forced out). He also served as president of the
Virginia Historical Society from 1881 to his death, published a booklet concerning the Committee of Nine at its request, and continued his legal practice. ==Death and legacy==