_Thirdly._ That Congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on the African trade, for the purpose of supplying foreigners with 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.