In the Civil War, Ohio did not make allowance for Quakers in its military conscription law. James B. Bruff, clerk of the Ohio Yearly Meeting, drafted a letter to the Ohio legislature on , to ask them to correct this oversight. Here is an excerpt from that letter concerning military exemption taxes:
Your Memorialists… respectfully but earnestly petition that they be unconditionally excused, by law, from military requisitions. We believe that it is not unreasonable to ask this exemption from military service. We only ask that we be not compelled, under fines and penalties, to do an act which our conscience does not allow. We cannot perform military service ourselves, nor can we employ substitutes. We cannot pay an equivalent for military duty, neither can we, voluntarily, pay a fine in order to be exempt therefrom. Surely it would be deemed unreasonable to compel a peace-loving, loyal people to pay fines which interfere with the liberty of conscience, guaranteed them by the Constitution of their State.
