Consciousnesses

 In the Virginia legislature, in the year 1832, Hon. Lewis Summers said,--
        "A slave population exercises the most pernicious influence upon the manners, habits and character of those whom it exists. Lisping infancy learns the vocabulary of abusive epithets, and struts, the embryo tyrant of its little domain. The consciousnesses of superior destiny takes possession of his mind at its earliest dawning, and love of power and rule 'grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.' Unless enabled to rise above the operation of those powerful causes, he enters the world with miserable notions of self-importance, and under the government of an unbridled temper."