And splendid flowers in richly-colored dress Will bloom when warm winds from the south shall veer: And clustering roses in their gorgeousness Shall form a coronet for the regal year. Rejoice, O beauteous Earth--O shining Sea! Rejoice, calm Summer sky, and all things dear: Give thanks, and let your joyful singing be An anthem for the glories of the year. THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS. _PART ONE._ The American crisis, actual and impending; the causes which have led to it through the years that have passed; the consequences which must flow from it; the new responsibilities which it devolves on us as a people in the practical sphere; the new theoretical problems which it forces upon our consideration--everything, in fine, which concerns it, constitutes it a subject of the most momentous importance. The greatest experiment ever yet instituted to bring the progress of humanity to a higher plane of development is being worked out on this continent and in this age; and the war now progressing between the Northern and the Southern States is, in a marked sense, the acme and critical ordeal to which that experiment is brought. First in order, in any methodical consideration of the subject, is the question of the causes which have led to this open outburst of collision and antagonism between the two great sections of a common country, whose institutions have hitherto been--with one remarkable exception--so similar as to be almost identical. Look at the subject as we will, the fact reveals itself more and more that the one exception alluded to is the 'head and front of this offending,' the heart and core of this gigantic difficulty, the one and sole cause of the desperate attempt now being waged to disturb and break up the process of experiment, otherwise so peacefully and harmoniously progressing, in favor of the freedom of man. There is no possibility of grappling rightly with the difficulty itself, unless we understand to the bottom the nature of the disease.