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.

[Footnote 8: London Inquirer.]

'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 p