The candid reader has now before him a brief exposition of the two platforms, and of the doctrines and bearing of each. It is believed that nothing has been extenuated; nor, on the other hand, has aught been here set down in malice. Let every one study the platforms and try conclusions for himself; then say whether the foregoing discussion could well have shaped itself differently. The sum of the whole matter seems to be, War and Union, or Peace and Disunion. If we have Union, it can only be now through war. We must 'seek peace with the sword.' The rebels have appealed from the civil law to the military law, from the Constitution to the sword; let us not shrink from the ordeal. No revolution to perpetuate oppression can hope for the favor of a God of justice.
There are two platforms in this Presidential campaign, representing the two parties into which the voters will be divided. But there is a third party, without platform and without vote, which has, nevertheless, interests at stake transcending even ours. Let the calmly considered words of an impartial English journal,[8] which wishes well to our country, speak, in conclusion, on behalf of that third party:
'There are three parties to the American war. There are the slaves, the bondsmen of the South, whose flight was restrained by the Fugitive Bill, and whose wrongs have brought about the disruption; there are the Confederates, who, when Southern supremacy in the republic was menaced by the election of Abraham Lincoln, threw off their allegiance; and there are the Government and its supporters, who are striving to restore the integrity of the Union. These are the three parties; and as the war has gone on from year to year, the cause of the negro has brightened, and hundreds of thousands of the African race have passed out of slavery into freedom. They flock in multitudes within the Federal lines, and take their stand under the Constitution as free men. Abandoned by their former masters, or flying from their fetters, the chattels become citizens, and rejoice. No matter what their misery, they keep their faces to the North, and bear up under their privations. Every advance of the national army liberates new throngs, and they rush eagerly to the camps where their brethren are cared for. The exodus, continually going on, increases in volume.
'Such are the colored freedmen, the innocent victims of the war, the slaves whom it has marvellously enfranchised; such are the dusky clouds that flit o'er the continent of America and settle down on strange lands—the harbingers of a social revolution in the great republic of the West. More than fifty thousand are formed into camps in the Mississippi Valley, and not fewer in Middle and East Tennessee and North Alabama. It is a vast responsibility which is cast upon the Government and the people of the North, a sore and mighty burden; and proportionate are the efforts which have been made to meet the trying emergency. The Government finds rations for the negro camps, provides free carriage for the contributions of the humane, appoints surgeons and superintendents, enlists in the army the men who are suitable, and, as far as possible, gives employment to all. Clothing and other necessaries are forwarded to the camps by the ton by benevolent hands, and books for the schools by tens of thousands. All along the banks of the Mississippi, from Cairo to New Orleans, and in Arkansas and Tennessee, the aged and infirm fugitives, the women and children, are collected into colored colonies, and tended and taught with a care that is worthy of a great and Christian people. All that can work are more than willing to do so; they labor gladly; and among old and young there is an eager desire for education. Books are coveted as badges of freedom; and the negro soldier carries them with him wherever he goes, and studies them whenever he can. It is a great work which is in progress across the Atlantic. Providence, in a manner which man foresaw not, is solving a dark problem of the past, and we may well look on with awe and wonder. There were thousands of minds which apprehended the downfall of the 'peculiar institution.' There were a prophetic few, who clearly perceived that it would be purged away by no milder scourge than that of war. But there were none who dreamed that the slaveholder would be the Samson to bring down the atrocious system of human slavery by madly taking arms in its defence! Yet so it was; and the Divine penalty is before us. The wrath of man has worked out the retributive justice of God. The crime which a country would not put away from it has ended in war, and slavery is a ruin.'
Literary Notices unavoidably postponed until the ensuing issue of The Continental.
FOOTNOTES
[1] A renowned fort in Polish history. It stood on the old battlefield between Turkey and Poland, between Europe and Asia.
[2] New York Sate Gazetteer.