I'm Glad Seward Wasn't Afraid of Criticism

A One-Vote Oddity

Seward’s Folly or Seward’s Legacy?

 

In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward started negotiating with Czarist Russia before the President had given him permission to do so! Seward was a supporter of territorial expansion of the United States. He saw the acquisition of new territory as part destiny and necessity. He believed the nation needed to be able to protect itself from sea to sea and that required an expanded western coastline.

Seward offered the Russian government roughly 2.5 cents an acre or $7.2 million. The Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward’s Folly" and "Seward’s Icebox." Some called it “President Andrew Johnson’s polar bear garden." Seward was undaunted. He forged ahead, believing that the purchase was a wise investment for the nation. He became the butt of popular jokes in the press throughout the nation. When he was asked what was the most significant act of his career he replied, "The purchase of Alaska! But it will take a generation to find that out."

He was right. Despite a slow start in convincing citizens to settle in the new territory, Alaska began to increase in population and with it, exploration. Gold was discovered in the 1880’s, and then in 1898, the great Yukon River Gold Rush started and rapid population growth soon followed. New settlers found the environment both beautiful and harsh. But they also found the Alaskan territory to be rich in natural resources of coal, timber and furs and fish.

Twenty-two years after it was purchased and labeled “Seward’s Folly,” Alaska began to pay huge dividends for the country and its citizens. In 1946, Alaskans approved statehood, and in 1955, adopted a constitution. Finally, in 1959, President Eisenhower announced Alaska as the 49^th state in the Union.

But it almost never happened.

Back in 1867, when jokes were flying about “Seward’s Folly” and President Johnson’s “polar bear garden,” there were powerful forces working against the Alaskan purchase. The Congress would have to appropriate the funds and the Senate would have to ratify the Treaty before the purchase could be consummated. On July 14, 1868, the House voted 113 to 43 (with 44 members not voting) to release the funds. The vote in the Senate was much closer.    (Continued on page 130)