In January 1861, Magoffin called the state legislature into special session and asked them to call a convention to determine Kentucky's course in the Civil War. The Unionist majority in the legislature feared that the vote of the convention would be to take Kentucky out of the Union; consequently, they refused to call the convention. In response to President Abraham Lincoln's call for troops on April 15, 1861, Magoffin defiantly declared by telegram, "I will send not a man nor a dollar for the wicked purpose of subduing my sister Southern States." Encouraged by Magoffin's rebuff of Lincoln, Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker requested Kentucky troops for the southern cause a week later, but Magoffin similarly refused him.