Slowly the sincerity of the Quaker conviction about war has made itself felt and limited legislative provisions have been made, especially in England and America, to meet the claims of conscience. The problem which confronts the law-maker, even when he is sympathetic with the rights of conviction, is the grave difficulty of determining where to draw the line of special exception to general requirements and how to discover the sincerity of conscientious objection to war. The "slacker" is always a stern possibility. There must be no holes in the net for him to escape through. The makers of armies naturally want every man who can be spared from civilian life and can be utilized for military operations. It has consequently often seemed necessary for law-makers to be narrow and hard toward the obviously sincere for fear of being too easy and lenient with those suspected of having sham consciences. During the Civil War in America, President Lincoln, eager as he was to win the war, was always deeply in sympathy with the Quakers, and he stretched his administrative powers to their full limit to provide relief for conscientious convictions. In the early stages of the great conflict the President wrote the following kindly note in answer to a message from New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends: "Engaged as I am, in a great war, I fear it will be difficult for the world to understand how fully I appreciate the principles of peace inculcated in this letter [of yours] and every where by the Society of Friends."[1] Both he and Secretary Stanton made many positive efforts to find some way of providing for the tender consciences of Friends without being unfair to the rights of others. They even requested American Friends to call a conference to consider how to find a satisfactory solution of the problem. Such a conference was held in Baltimore, December 7th, 1863, and the Friends there assembled expressed great appreciation of "the kindness evinced at all times by the President and Secretary of War." A delegation from this conference visited Washington and, in co-operation with Secretary Stanton, succeeded in securing a clause in the enrolment bill, declaring Friends to be non-combatants, assigning all drafted Friends to hospital service or work among freedmen, and further providing for the entire exemption of Friends from military service on the payment of $300 into a fund for the relief of sick and wounded.[2]