Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!

The line sets personal survival against political and moral freedom and finds life itself weightless when measured against “dear Liberty.” In Larcom’s idiom, “dear” carries both affection and cost: liberty is cherished, but also worth sacrifice. The metaphor of a balance scale evokes a deliberate weighing of values, suggesting that true dignity depends on self-determination rather than mere existence. Read in the context of 19th-century American reform rhetoric (especially antislavery and civic republican traditions), the sentiment aligns with the idea that freedom is a prerequisite for a meaningful life, and that the loss of liberty constitutes a fate worse than death.