slaves,
and of providing, by proper regulations, for the humane
treatment, during their passage, of slaves imported by the
said citizens into the States admitting such importation.

_Fourthly._ That Congress have authority to prohibit
foreigners from fitting out vessels in any port of the United
States for transporting persons from Africa to any foreign
port.

47. ~The Act of 1794.~ This declaration of the powers of the central
government over the slave-trade bore early fruit in the second Congress,
in the shape of a shower of petitions from abolition societies in
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia.[30] In some of these slavery was denounced as
"an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human
nature,"[31] and the slave-trade as a traffic "degrading to the rights
of man" and "repugnant to reason."[32] Others declared the trade
"injurious to the true commercial interest of a nation,"[33] and asked
Congress that, having taken up the matter, they do all in their power to
limit the trade. Congress was, however, determined to avoid as long as
possible so unpleasant a matter, and, save an angry attempt to censure a
Quaker petitioner,[34] nothing was heard of the slave-trade until the
third Congress.

Meantime, news came from the seas southeast of Carolina and Georgia
which influenced Congress more powerfully than humanitarian arguments
had done. The wild revolt of despised slaves, the rise of a noble black
leader, and the birth of a new nation of Negro freemen frightened the
pro-slavery advocates and armed the anti-slavery agitation. As a result,
a Quaker petition for a law against the transport traffic in slaves was
received without a murmur in 1794,[35] and on March 22 the first
national act against the slave-trade became a law.[36] It was designed
"to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade from the United States to
any foreign place or country," or the fitting out of slavers in the
United States for that country. The penalties for violation were
forfeiture of the ship, a fine of $1000 for each person engaged, and of
$200 for each slave transported. If the Quakers thought this a triumph
of anti-slavery sentiment, they were quickly undeceived. Congress might
willingly restrain the country from feeding West Indian turbulence, and
yet be furious at a petition like that of 1797,[37] calling attention to
"