certain that as early as 1859 Senator Gwin and the Assistant Secretary of State discussed the question with Stoeckl, the Russian Minister at Washington, and that as much as five million dollars was offered. The official answer was that this sum was not regarded as adequate, but that Russia would be ready to carry on negotiations as soon as the Minister of Finance could look into the question. There was no occasion for haste; Buchanan soon went out of office; and the subject, which was never known to many persons, seems to have been entirely forgotten for several years.

The interests of a few citizens on the Pacific slope were the mainspring of the little that had been done. For more than a decade San Francisco had annually received a large amount of ice from Russian America, and United States fishermen had been profitably engaged in different parts of the far northern Pacific. Those interests had rapidly increased from year to year. At the beginning of 1866 the legislature of Washington Territory sent a petition to President Johnson, saying that an abundance of codfish, halibut, and salmon had been found along the shores of Russian America, and requesting him to obtain from the Russian government such concessions as would enable American fishing vessels to visit the ports and harbors of that region for the purpose of obtaining fuel, water, and provisions. Sumner says that this was referred to the Secretary of State, who suggested to Stoeckl that some comprehensive arrangement should be made to prevent any difficulties arising between the United States and Russia on account of the fisheries. About this time several Californians wished to obtain a franchise to carry on the fur-trade in Russian America. Senator Cole, of California, urged both Seward and Stoeckl to support the request. Seward instructed Cassius M. Clay, the United States Minister at St. Petersburg, to consult the Russian government on the subject. Clay reported in February, 1867, that there was a prospect of success. In fact, the time happened to be peculiarly opportune for negotiation.

Russian America had never been brought under the regular rule of the imperial government. Since the beginning of the century its few thousand civilized inhabitants had been governed by a great monopoly called the Russian-American Company. Its charter had expired with the year 1861, and had not been renewed; yet a renewal was expected. This monopoly was so unprofitable that it had sought and obtained special privileges, such as the free importation of tea into Russia. It had even sublet some of its privileges to the Hudson Bay Company. This sublease to Englishmen was to expire in June, 1867. By the usual means of communication Russian America was from Russia one of the most distant regions on earth. To organize it as a colony would involve great expense and continuous financial loss. defend it in time of war with Great Britain or the United States would be an impossibility. When the Crimean war broke out common interest led the Russian-American and the Hudson Bay companies to induce their respective governments to neutralize the Russian and the British possessions on the northwest coast of America. Otherwise Great Britain might easily have seized the Russian Terri

To

tory. To the imperial government at the beginning of 1867 the problem resolved itself into these three questions: Shall the charter of the monopoly, with its privileges and unsatisfactory treatment of the inhabitants, be renewed? Shall an expensive colonial system be organized? Shall we sell at a fair price territory that will surely be lost, if it ever becomes populated and valuable? It was foreseen that unless sold to the most constant and grateful of Russia's friends, it was likely to be taken by her strongest and most inveterate enemy. Stoeckl was spending part of the winter of 186667 in St. Petersburg, and the different questions were talked over with him, for he had long been Minister to the United States. In February, 1867, as he was about to return to Washington, "the Archduke Constantine, the brother and chief adviser of the Emperor, handed him a map with the lines in our treaty marked upon it, and told him he might treat for this cession."

The following month Stoeckl and Seward began negotiations. One named ten million dollars as a reasonable price; the other offered five millions. Then they took the middle ground- namely, seven million five hundred thousand-as a basis. Seward urged and Stoeckl agreed that the half million should be dropped. The Russian-American Company still claimed privileges and held interests that could not be ignored. Seward saw the objections to assuming any responsibility for matters of this kind; so he offered to add two hundred thousand dollars to the seven millions if Russia would give a title free from all liabilities. On the evening of March 29, 1867, the Russian Minister called at Seward's house and informed him of the receipt of a cablegram reporting the Emperor's consent to the proposition, and then he added that he would be ready to take up the final work the next day, for haste was desirable. With a smile of satisfaction at the news, Seward pushed aside the table where he had been enjoying his usual evening game of whist, and said: "Why wait until to-morrow, Mr. Stoeckl? Let us make the treaty to-night." The needed clerks were summoned; the Assistant Secretary went after Sumner, the chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs; the Russian Minister sent for his assistants; and at midnight all met at the Department of State. By four o'clock in the morning the task was completed. In a few hours the President sent the treaty to the Senate.- Life of William H. Seward, by Frederic Bancroft.

Two great American names are associated with the purchase of Alaska, Seward and Sumner. Seward, as Secretary of State negotiated with Stoeckl, the Russian minister, the treaty, which was signed March 30, 1867. Sumner, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, was its chief sponsor before the Senate, delivering on April 9, 1867, his speech upon the Cession of Russian America to the United States, which was followed the same day by the vote in favor of ratification. Sumner's speech, which occupies 64 pp in vol. xi. of his Works, is a most thorough study of the boundaries of Alaska, its early history, the negotiations for the cession, the sources of information upon Russian America, the character and value of the territory, and the general problems involved in the transfer; and it remains the greatest speech upon Alaska, a monument to Sumner's erudition and a permanent magazine of information.

Seward regarded the purchase as of the highest value and significance.

What, Mr.

Seward," asked a friend, "do you consider the most important measure of your political career?" "The purchase of Alaska," he replied; "but it will take the people a generation to find it out." Seward was an ardent expansionist. As early as 1846 he said, "Our population is destined to roll its resistless waves to the icy barriers of the North, and to encounter Oriental civilization on the shores of the Pacific." At St. Paul in 1860 he said :

Standing here and looking far off into the northwest, I see the Russian as he busily occupies himself in establishing seaports and towns and fortifications on the verge of this continent, as the outposts of St. Petersburg; and I can say, 'Go on and build up your outposts all along the coast, up even to the Arctic Ocean-they will yet become the outposts of my own country · monuments of the civilization of the United States in the north-west.' So I look off on Prince Rupert's Land and Canada, and see there an ingenious, enterprising, and ambitious people, occupied with bridging rivers and constructing canals, railroads, and telegraphs to organize and preserve great British provinces north of the great lakes, the St. Lawrence, and around the shores of Hudson Bay, and I am able to say, 'It is very well: you are building excellent States to be hereafter admitted into the American Union.' I can look southwest and see amid all the convulsions that are breaking the Spanish-American republics, and in their rapid decay and dissolution, the preparatory stage for their reorganization in free, equal, and self-governing members of the United States of America."

He believed that the City of Mexico would become ultimately the capital of the United States of America. But he would have expansion only by peaceful means, never by war, which he abhorred. "I would not give one human life for all the continent that remains to be annexed." See Sumner also upon this point in his Alaska speech: "This treaty must not be a precedent for a system of indiscriminate and costly annexation. ... I cannot disguise my anxiety that every stage in our predestined future shall be by natural processes without war, and I would add even without purchase. There is no territorial aggrandizement which is worth the price of blood.... Our triumph should be by growth and organic expansion in obedience to pre-established harmony,' recognizing always the will of those who are to become our fellow-citizens."

Two years after the purchase, Mr. Seward visited Alaska, with which his name had become so closely identified that it was often spoken of as "Seward's Arctic_Province." The account of his travels in Alaska (1869) may be read in his biography by Frederic Bancroft and elsewhere. At Sitka he was called upon to make a public address expressing his impressions of Alaska. This is the address given in the present leaflet, reprinted from Seward's Works, vol. v. The address was clearly intended for the people of the United States in general quite as much as for his particular audience; and it is a memorable picture of Alaska at the time by the principal agent in its purchase.

Seward's Autobiography (1801-34) has been published, supplemented by Memoirs (183146) by his son, Frederick W. Seward; and the work on "Seward at Washington," by the same, supplements this. There is a life of Seward in two vols. by Frederic Bancroft. The volume on Seward in the American Statesmen Series is by Thornton K. Lothrop. Charles Francis Adams's address on Seward should be read, and the essay by Henry Cabot Lodge in his " Historical and Political Essays."

The important history of Alaska is that by Hubert Howe Bancroft,-vol. xxviii of his History of the Pacific States: chap. 28 gives the account of the treaty and the transfer. "The area of Alaska," says Bancroft, in his graphic introduction, "is greater than that of the thirteen original States of the Union, its extreme length being more than two thousand miles and its extreme breadth about fourteen hundred; while its coast line, including bays and islands, is greater than the circumference of the earth." The price paid for this enormous arctic province was about two cents an acre.

There are many books, historical and descriptive, about Alaska. Among them are William Healy Dall's Alaska and its Resources" (1870), Henry W. Elliott's Our Arctic Province" (1886), and the accounts of travel by M. M. Ballou, Henry Martyn Field, E. R. Scidmore, Alfred P. Swineford, and others. See the essay on "Imperial Lessons of Alaska" by David Starr Jordan, in his "Imperial Democracy." The publications concerning Alaska issued by various departments of the government, the Census Office, the Bureau of Education, the Coast Survey, and the Geological Survey, are of great value. One of these, Bulletin No. 187 of the United States Geological Survey, is the Geographic Dictionary of Álaska by Marcus Baker.

DELIVERED AT FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, JULY 5, 1802.

It is the glory of nations, as it is of individuals, to increase in wisdom as they advance in age, and to guide their concerns not so much by the result of abstract reasoning as by the dictates of experience. But this glory is no more the uniform felicity of ancient states than of their ancient citizens. In the eighteenth century, the British nation had existed thirteen hundred years; seen ages roll away with wrecks of empires; marked thousands of experiments in the science and the art of civil government; and had risen to a lofty height of improvement, of freedom, and of happiness. It was yet the misfortune and the disgrace of this kingdom, so famous in the annals of modern Europe, to war with the principles of her own constitution, and to tread with presumptuous step the dangerous path of innovation and unrighteousness.

This sentiment will be vindicated by considering, as on this occasion we are bound "to consider, the feelings, manners, and principles which led to the declaration of American Independence, as well as the important and happy effects, whether general or domestic, which have already flowed, or will forever flow, from the auspicious epoch of its date." In assisting your performance of this annual duty, my fellow-citizens, I claim the privilege granted to your former orators, of holding forth the language of truth; and I humbly solicit a favor, of which they had no need, the most liberal exercise of your ingenuousness and benevolence.

The feelings of Americans were always the feelings of freemen. Those venerable men from whom you boast your descent brought with them to these shores an unconquerable sense of liberty. They felt that mankind were universally entitled to be free; that this freedom, though modified by the restrictions of social compact, could yet never be annulled; and that slavery in any of its forms is an execrable monster, whose breath is poison and whose grasp is death. Concerning this liberty, however, they entertained no romantic notions. They neither sought nor wished the freedom of an irrational, but that of a rational being; not the freedom of savages, not the freedom of anchorites, but that of civilized and social man. Their doctrine of equality was admitted by sober understandings. It was an equality not of wisdom, but of right; not a parity of power, but of obligation. They felt and advocated a right to personal security, to the fruits of their ingenuity and toil, to reputation, to choice of mode in the worship of God, and to such a liberty of action as consists with the safety of others and the integrity of the laws.

Of rights like these your ancestors cherished a love bordering on reverence. They had inhaled it with their natal air; it formed the bias and the boast of their minds and indelibly stamped the features of their character. In their eyes honor had no allurement, wealth no value, and existence itself no charms, unless liberty crowned the possession of these blessings. It was for the enjoyment of this ecclesiastic and political liberty that they encountered the greatest dangers and suffered the sharpest calamities. For this they had rived the enchanting bonds which unite the heart to its native country, braved the terror of unknown seas, exchanged the sympathies and intercourse of fondest friendships for the hatred and wiles of the barbarian, and all the elegancies and joys of polished life for a miserable sustenance in an horrible desert.

It was impossible for descendants of such men not to inherit an abhorrence of arbitrary power. Numerous circumstances strengthened the emotion. They had never been taught that property acquires title by labor; and they were conscious of having expended much of the one for little of the other. They were thence naturally tenacious of what they possessed, and conceived that no human power might legally diminish it without their consent. They had also sprung from a commercial people, and they inhabited a country which opened