Question

Which statement explains the u.s. motivation for the acquisition of the Alaska territory

Answer 1

Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing the Alaskan territory without compensation in some future conflict, especially to their rivals the British, whose Royal Navy could easily capture the hard-to-defend region. Therefore the Czar Alexander II decided to sell the territory to the US and instructed Russian minister to the United States, Baron Eduard de Stoeckl, to enter into negotiations with Seward in the beginning of March 1867. American public opinion was generally negative; as summarized by one historian, the complaints were many.Already, so it was said, we were burdened with territory we had no population to fill. The Indians within the present boundaries of the republic strained our power to govern aboriginal peoples. Could it be that we would now, with open eyes, seek to add to our difficulties by increasing the number of such peoples under our national care? The purchase price was large; the annual charges for administration, civil and military, would be yet greater, and continuing. The territory included in the proposed cession was not contiguous to the national domain. It lay away at an inconvenient and a dangerous distance. The treaty had been secretly prepared, and signed and foisted upon the country at four o'clock in the morning. It was a dark deed done in the night.