William Henry Seward

William Henry Seward directed American diplomacy through the Civil War and the first years of Reconstruction. His work combined the immediate task of keeping European powers out of the war with a longer ambition to expand American territory and commerce. ¹

William Henry Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska while serving as United States Secretary of State. Seward and the Russian minister, Eduard de Stoeckl, signed the treaty in Washington on 30 March 1867. Russia agreed to transfer its territory in North America for $7.2 million; the payment followed in 1868. ²

Born in New York in 1801, Seward studied at Union College and entered law and state politics. He served as governor and then as a United States senator, opposed the expansion of slavery, and sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1860. After Abraham Lincoln won the nomination and the election, he appointed Seward Secretary of State. Seward remained in office under Andrew Johnson until 1869. ¹

During the Civil War, Seward worked to prevent European recognition of the Confederacy. The seizure of Confederate commissioners from the British ship Trent threatened war with Britain in 1861; the United States released the men. Seward also worked through the American minister in London, Charles Francis Adams, to limit British assistance to Confederate naval operations. ¹

Lincoln limited Seward’s early willingness to confront European powers militarily. The secretary’s more sustained achievement was to work within those limits: protest assistance to the Confederacy, maintain relations with neutral governments, and avoid an additional war while the Union fought for survival. The disputes over British-built Confederate cruisers continued beyond Seward’s tenure and became a central problem for his successor, Hamilton Fish. ¹

After the Civil War, Seward supported resistance to the French-backed monarchy in Mexico and pursued acquisitions beyond Alaska. Attempts to obtain the Danish Virgin Islands and territory in the Dominican Republic failed, while the United States occupied Midway in 1867. These projects connected continental expansion with ambitions in the Caribbean and Pacific, but their uneven results also reflected the limits imposed by foreign governments and Congress. ¹