January 1st, 1863, is the day that the 16th President of the United States of America, President Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaiming that all slaves in the Confederacy were “forever free” because these Southern states refused to rejoin the Union and were in “rebellion” against the United States of America.

Ironically, the Union states were allowed to maintain their slaves because President Lincoln did not want to risk friction among them. Subsequently, freedmen fled to the North to join the Union Army, and slavery became the pivotal focus of the Civil War. The initial conflict began over various other reasons regarding states’ individual rights, such as taxation, the South demanding control over their own political and socio-economic infrastructure, as well as states’ resources.

With slavery perceived as the central issue, the Emancipation Proclamation has been lauded as a giant step for man-kind, when in fact; it was a strategic political and military move at best. At the time, William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, was quoted as sarcastically stating:

“We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.”

It was not until June 19th, 1865, that word of freedom reached the majority of southern states. General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to force slave-owners to comply with the new law — only to find that the slaves had no idea they were free.

Still, we continue to celebrate the widely recognized symbol of the dissolution of slavery. And in honor of the 150 anniversary of the historic occasion, during which tentative strides were made towards freedom, President Barack Obama has issued the following proclamation.