By adding the territory of Alaska to the landmass of the country, Seward increased the size of the United States by twenty percent. At the time of the purchase, the rest of the government couldn’t see the point in buying a large piece of empty land that was dark for six months out of the year, had inhospitable weather and was difficult to traverse. But within a few short years oil and gold were discovered in Alaska making the $7.2 million purchase price a bit of a bargain. Seward’s folly turned out to be Seward’s foresight.

William Henry Seward was born in Florida in 1801 and became a lawyer after college. Seward not only concerned himself with the Alaska purchase, he was also one of the biggest anti slavery advocates of his time. He became a politician at the tender age of 29 going from New York senator to New York governor and then spent twelve years as a United States senator.

During his senate time, he assisted with the statehood of California, promoted the abolitionist movement and even allowed his home to be used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. He ran for president in 1860 but his party chose Lincoln as their candidate that year. Seward gratefully accepted a nomination from Lincoln to be Secretary of State and served in that capacity for the rest of Lincoln’s term. Secretary of state under Lincoln proved a dramatic role as Seward suffered a knife attack the same evening that Lincoln was assassinated. This was just a setback for the determined Seward who finished his term and then served as Secretary of State under the next President Andrew Johnson.

Before Seward’s purchase in 1867, the Alaskan territory had been a bit of a Russian stronghold. Fur trappers had utilized the area for decades but by the 1850s, Russia was looking elsewhere to improve its economy. Purchasing land from China seemed more important to the Russian emperor Alexander II than retaining unprofitable land near North America. For the Russians, it had become a matter of sell to the Americans or sell to the British who wanted the land to increase the size of their territory of Canada.

The Russians had fought against the British in the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856 where both the Russian Empire and the Western European powers fought to obtain the lands now available from the break up of the Ottoman Empire. Russian had no desire to let the British take the land, no matter how fruitless they felt Alaska to be. The Russians offered the land to America out of a determination to upset the British and Seward jumped on the opportunity.

Despite a delay in negotiations caused by the interruption of the American Civil War (1861-1865), Seward pursued the Russian offer as soon as he was able. March 30 the handshakes took place but it would take until October of 1867 for all the red tape to go through and for Alaska to be officially declared a part of the United States. With the purchase, Seward not only gained for America a beautiful resource rich state, he ended Russian influence in the Americas and secured the northern borders of the nation.

Alaska officially became a state in 1959 under the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. Seward, Alaska is a thriving town to this day, named for the man who believed in the importance of the state to the country as a whole. The purchase is celebrated every last Monday in March (“Seward’s Day”) by the citizens of Alaska. The story of Seward’s folly shows that determination and an ambitious personality can get the job done and not just presidents go down in American political history.

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