after months of riotous debate, the American Congress abolishes slavery. Northern representatives joined with a surprisingly large number of southern politicians to pass the Writ of Emancipation.

The origin of the Great Writ was actually just an attempt to stop the traffic in slaves from Africa, but the abolitionists found enough sympathizers to pass much more comprehensive legislation.

President Thomas Jefferson (pictured), himself a southerner and slave-owner, signed the bill into law, saying, "Today, we finally acknowledge the noble sentiments that we spoke of in the Constitution; today, all men are equal under the law, at last".

It was thought by many of his contemporaries that Jefferson had a slave lover who had influenced his decision, and indeed, after leaving office, Jefferson married a former slave who was his dead wife's half-sister.

As to the Great Writ itself, although the southern leadership had considered slavery to be of little importance to their region, hundreds of slave-owners felt that it was an attack on them, personally. Minor rebellions flared in the south for decades as the former slave-owners attempted to take their revenge on the US for what they perceived as a usurpation of their sovereignty, and pockets of slavery existed until the 1840's before the government could finally track them all down.