The union between liberty and slavery was a marriage without love, a house divided against itself; a couple unequally yoked together, held together by external force, not by moral cohesion; it brought happiness to neither, and misery to both.
He metaphorically describes the union of liberty and slavery as a troubled marriage, illustrating the inherent conflict.
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The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.
The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.