Secretary of State William Seward was the most prominent proponent of expansion. And he argued that one region in particular provided the perfect opportunity to not only improve America’s global and economic standing, but to further tether a fractured country together: Alaska.
At the time, the vast expanse we now know as Alaska was a colony of czarist Russia. Indigenous Alaska Natives had suffered for generations at the hands of Russian settlers, using massacre after massacre to cement Russian rule. By the mid-1860s, though, the province was little more than dead weight for the Russian regime. It was too far from Russia’s capital, with too little infrastructure, for the czarist regime to keep pumping it with money and men. And with Russia’s own finances slowly imploding, czarist officials began casting about for someone to take Alaska off their hands.
But there were only so many options. Selling to the British, which still controlled the adjacent Canadian provinces, was a nonstarter; Britain was Russia’s primary colonial rival, and anything that could strengthen London’s hand had to be avoided. The Americans, though, presented an attractive alternative. Selling Alaska to the U.S. would allow Washington to act as a counterweight to British influence in the region. Plus, in Russia’s eyes, America appeared likely to one day conquer the entirety of North America — so why not sell out early, and at least make a little money along the way?
There was only one problem. Few Americans outside of Seward saw any reason to purchase Alaska from the Russians. To many Americans, Russian Alaska in the 1860s — decades before the discovery of the gold and oil that would eventually make Alaska one of the wealthiest American states — was little more than empty tundra. It was an “icebox,” or a “polar bear garden” that the Americans didn’t need. Plus, Washington had more pressing issues, from the military occupation of the former Confederate states to the passage of basic civil rights protections for Black Americans. “American interest in Alaska wobbled between ho-hum interest and disinterest,” one scholar described.
But the Russians couldn’t wait. Selling the province — and persuading the Americans to spend a gargantuan sum on something Washington didn’t want — was one of the easiest ways to help stabilize Russian finances. If only the Americans could be convinced.
And so began one of the most consequential foreign influence-peddling schemes in U.S. history, one with lasting resonance today. Not only did it involve Russia, which is still being accused of surreptitious efforts to affect U.S. politics and policy, but it also demonstrated how easily lobbying can slide from legal to illegal, from attempted persuasion to overt corruption, and how hard the whole nefarious game is to police and combat.