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Biography
William Henry Seward (1801–1872) was born in Florida, New York. He graduated from Union College and began practicing law in Auburn, New York. He served in the New York Senate and was governor of New York before being elected to the U.S. Senate, where he became an opponent of slavery. Seward was the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, but his antislavery speeches struck some party members as too radical. The party instead selected the more moderate Abraham Lincoln, whose victory in the general election led to the secession of states in the South and the formation of the Confederate States of America. With other political leaders, Seward tried to resolve the crisis during the winter of 1861 but was unsuccessful.
Lincoln named his rival as secretary of state, and Seward became a loyal friend to Lincoln. As secretary, Seward was able to prevent recognition of the Confederacy by other nations, especially Britain, although a diplomatic crisis arose when the U.S. Navy arrested Confederate envoys headed for Europe. Since envoys were afforded diplomatic protections, especially during wartime, many feared that Britain might intervene in the conflict unless the envoys were released, which Seward did. Seward and the U.S. minister in London, Charles Francis Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams, put an end to Britain’s building of ships for the Confederates after one of them, the Alabama, was launched to attack Union merchant and naval ships.
Immediately after the Confederate surrender, Seward was a target of the same conspiracy that assassinated Lincoln. He was attacked in his home, and his son Frederick, assistant secretary of state at the time, was seriously wounded, but both recovered.
Seward retained his position during the administration of Andrew Johnson. He is perhaps best known for his negotiations with Russia that led to the purchase of Alaska in 1867. His efforts to purchase the Danish West Indies (today the U.S. Virgin Islands) and other islands in the Caribbean were unsuccessful, but in 1867 he did force the French to withdraw from Mexico, where—with the United States distracted by the Civil War—they had established a new Mexican government under the Austrian archduke Maximilian, in 1864. Seward also negotiated the 1868 Burlingame-Seward Treaty with China that gave the United States favorable terms for trade and eased restrictions on Chinese immigration.
Seward was disappointed not to be named secretary of state in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, and he returned to Auburn.