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