el. All mankind agree to call such a character
inhuman. If any thing can move a hard heart, it is the appeal of
hunger. The Arab robber whose whole life is a prowl for plunder, will
freely divide his camel's milk with the hungry stranger who halts at
his tent door, though he may have just waylaid him and stripped him of
his money. Even savages take pity on hunger. Who ever went famishing
from an Indian's wigwam? As much as hunger craves, is the Indian's
free gift even to an enemy. The necessity for food is such a universal
want, so constant, manifest and imperative, that the heart is more
touched with pity by the plea of hunger, and more ready to supply that
want than any other. He who can habitually inflict on others the pain
of hunger by giving them insufficient food, can habitually inflict on
them any other pain. He can kick and cuff and flog and brand them, put
them in irons or the stocks, can overwork them, deprive them of sleep,
lacerate their backs, make them work without clothing, and sleep
without covering.

Other cruelties may be perpetrated in hot blood and the acts regretted
as soon as done--the feeling that prompts them is not a permanent
state of mind, but a violent impulse stung up by sudden provocation.
But he who habitually withholds from his dependents sufficient
sustenance, can plead no such palliation. The fact itself shows, that
his permanent state of mind toward them is a brutal indifference to
their wants and sufferings--A state of mind which will naturally,
necessarily, show itself in innumerable privations and inflictions
upon them, when it can be done with impunity.

If, therefore, we find upon examination, that the slaveholders do not
furnish their slaves with sufficient food, and do thus habitually
inflict upon them the pain of hunger, we have a clue furnished to
their treatment in other respects, and may fairly infer habitual and
severe privations and inflictions; not merely from the fact that men
are quick to feel for those who suffer from hunger, and perhaps more
ready to relieve that want than any other; but also, because it is
more for the interest of the slaveholder to supply that want than any
other; consequently, if the slave suffer in this respect, he must as
the general rule, suffer _more_ in other respects.

We now proceed to show that the slaves have insufficient food. This
will be shown first from the express declarations of slaveholders, and
other competent witnesses who are,