Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/279

Rh derived by us was the same as if done solely on our account.

&quot;It was, therefore, natural that our government should feel a desire to return, in some inoffensive method, to our benefactor at least the pecuniary cost of the benefaction. The cession of Alaska furnished this opportunity. Russia possessed almost boundless tracts of this sort of uninhabited (if not uninhabitable) territory in the north of Europe and Asia; she could spare Alaska with out inconvenience, and probably needed ready money; and the United States may have seen some possible future advantage in becoming the owner of the territory lying north of British Columbia and stretching northwest to the Straits of Bering, and accepted the cession at the price named without reference to the commercial value of the territory acquired. In fact, its intrinsic commercial value was hardly alluded to during the discussion of the treaty in the Senate.

&quot;It is not probable that any formal treaty or bargain, express or implied, was ever made between the United States and Russia on this subject, * * * that is not the way in which great nations manifest and reciprocate sentiments of friendly regard for each other. To presuppose that Russia had to be bargained with and promised remuneration for the moral support of her navy, would have robbed this friendly act of its imperial grandeur.&quot; (From MSS. letter of Hon. James Harlan with consent to use.)

The above quotation clearly sets forth the connection between the Civil war and the acquisition of Alaska. This acquisition, then, followed the remarkable general law of American territorial expansion. It was the corollary of a great war, and it came to the United States as a result of the peculiar complication of European affairs. in one respect it differed from the other acquisitions; it was the only acquisition in which the South was not the leading factor. The South was then powerless, and if