This statute retained two features that had already given rise to much friction, and that were destined to be the cause of much more. It was still within the power of state governors to impede conscription very seriously. By certifying that a man was necessary to the civil administration of a State, a Governor could place him beyond the legal reach of the conscripting officers. This provision was a concession to those who looked on Davis's request for authority over exemption as the first step toward absolutism. On the other hand the statute allowed the President a free hand in the scarcely less important matter of "details." Among the imperative problems of the Confederacy, where the whole male population was needed in the public service, was the most economical separation of the two groups, the fighters and the producers. On the one hand there was the constant demand for recruits to fill up the wasted armies; on the other, the need for workers to keep the shops going and to secure the harvest. The two interests were never fully coördinated. Under the act of 1864, no farmer, mechanic, tradesman, between the ages of seventeen and fifty, if fit for military service, could remain at his work except as a "detail" under orders of the President: he might be called to the colors at a moment's notice. We shall see, presently, how the revoking of details, toward the end of what may truly be called the terrible year, was one of the major incidents of Confederate history. Together with the new conscription act, the President approved on February 17, 1864, a reenactment of the tax in kind, with some slight concessions to the convenience of the farmers. The President's appeal for a law directly taxing slaves and land had been ignored by Congress, but another of his suggestions had been incorporated in the Funding Act. The state of the currency was now so grave that Davis attributed to it all the evils growing out of the attempts to enforce impressment. As the value of the paper dollar had by this time shrunk to six cents in specie and the volume of Confederate paper was upward of seven hundred millions, Congress undertook to reduce the volume and raise the value by compelling holders of notes to exchange them for bonds. By way of driving the note-holders to consent to the exchange, provision was made for the speedy taxation of notes for one-third their face value.