Thus of all the schemes of expansion in the fifty years between
the Mexican and the Spanish wars, for the Gadsden Purchase of
1853 was really only a rectification of boundary, this alone came
to fruition. Seward could well congratulate himself on his
alertness in seizing an opportunity and on his management of the
delicate political aspects of the purchase. Without his
promptness the golden opportunity might have passed and never
recurred. Yet he could never have saved this fragment of his
policy had not the American people cherished for Russia a
sentimental friendship which was intensified at the moment by
anger at the supposed sympathy of Great Britain for the South.

If Russia hoped by ceding Alaska to involve the United States in
difficulties with her rival Great Britain, her desire was on one
occasion nearly gratified. The only profit which the United
States derived from this new possession was for many years drawn
from the seal fishery. The same generation of Americans which
allowed the extermination of the buffalo for lap robes found in
the sealskin sack the hall mark of wealth and fashion. While,
however, the killing of the buffalo was allowed to go on without
official check, the Government in 1870 inaugurated a system to
preserve the seal herds which was perhaps the earliest step in a
national conservation policy. The sole right of killing was given
to the Alaska Commercial Company with restrictions under which it
was believed that the herds would remain undiminished. The
catch was limited to one hundred thousand a year; it was to
include only male seals; and it was to be limited to the breeding
grounds on the Pribilof Islands.