A Barrel of Gunpowder, and a Spark

So Americans wanted it, but annexationists were outnumbered by confederationists, and nothing from Britain about selling it. I don't see how it is on the table

Well, one ATL reason that helps is that the Union is preserved and there's no Civil War. Namely, one of the reasons the people from British Columbia were reluctant to support annexation, was the instability and uncertainty on if the United States would remain united. Another ATL reason: the one who wanted to purchase it, Seward, is not merely a Secretary of State; no, he's President.

Wikipedia said:
Seward believed that the people in British Columbia wanted annexation and that Britain would accept this in exchange for the Alabama claims. In the event, Seward dropped the idea of an exchange and accepted an arbitration plan that settled the Alabama claims for cash. When a false report circulated in April, soon after the Alaska news, that the British government was considering settling the claims by ceding the colony, a substantial annexation movement appeared supported by many residents and three of the colony's six newspapers.
ITTL, there are no Alabama Claims, because there was no Civil War. However, in the late 1850s, Britain did financially and politically support the southern secession movements. This gets public in 1860, angering most Americans.

Wikipedia said:
...annexationists argued that the colony would never be able to negotiate with the United States a free trade agreement similar to the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, and that annexation would end the disadvantage of the American tariff.
ITTL, there is more annexationism because the economy of the Pacific West of the US flourishes more (consequence of the absence of the Civil War).

Anyway, the fact is that we're not taking about 1867 here but about 1860-63, roughly. As a result, the British weren't yet so concerned about retaining British Columbia. When Alaska is purchased, they won't be able to stop the US from taking BC.
 
If 1859 is your POD, i am having a lot of trouble seeing how Seward can become a moderate, or more moderate in a year and a bit before the OTL civil war was on, and even see how you can butterfly away the civil war in such a short amount of time.
 
If 1859 is your POD, i am having a lot of trouble seeing how Seward can become a moderate, or more moderate in a year and a bit before the OTL civil war was on, and even see how you can butterfly away the civil war in such a short amount of time.
Well, Seward becomes more moderate because he becomes President and starts to realise his country is almost in a civil war. He thinks preserving the Union has priority over abolishing slavery, which - in his eyes - should become a gradual process of emancipation. Also, he won't have to become a lot more moderate than he was:
Not So!: Popular Myths About America's Past From Columbus to Clinton said:
In 1850, when William T. [sic] Seward declared that there was a “higher law” than the Constitution, he revealed himself to be as radical an abolitionist as William Lloyd Garrison was.
No, he didn’t. He used the phrase “higher law,” to be sure, but he was by no means a radical.
William Seward, a Whig and Senator from New York from 1848 until he became Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State in 1861, was no William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was a radical; Seward, a moderate. Garrison demanded the “immediate and complete emancipation” of slaves, while Seward favored the gradual emancipation with compensation to the slave-owners.
...
Seward never dreamed of breaking the law or repudiating the Constitution.
Unlike Garrison, Seward simply did not have the agitator’s temperament. Still, as an antislavery Whig, he opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories acquired from Mexico after the Mexican-American War (1846–48); he also refused to support a fugitive slave law requiring Northerners to return runaway slaves to the South. Henry Clay’s famous Compromise of 1850—a series of measures Clay hoped would be acceptable to both the northern and the southern states—contained both a fugitive slave law and a provision letting the people of New Mexico and Utah decide whether they wanted slavery or not, and for that reason Seward absolutely refused to support it. In a long speech made in the Senate on March 11, 1850, he explained at one point the basic reason for his opposition to Clay’s compromise measures. The Preamble to the Constitution, he reminded his colleagues, singled out union, justice, defense, welfare, and liberty as the objectives of the federal government, and, he went on to say, it was these objectives, and not slavery, that should prevail in all the territories acquired by the United States. “But,” he added, “there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.”
Seward’s reference to a “higher law than the Constitution” was widely misunderstood. His southern colleagues charged he was disparaging the Constitution and virtually calling on people to take the law into their own hands. Some Senators even recommended his expulsion from the Senate for his inflammatory remarks. But Seward was no firebrand. He was not advocating anarchy, or even civil disobedience; he was simply stating what he regarded as obvious: that basic moral principles (“higher law”) dictated the “same noble proposes” that the Preamble to the Constitution enumerated. For some reason, he never adequately explained what he meant, and, amid the torrent of criticism that followed his speech, he won the reputation of being a radical, even though he was actually a moderate who, unlike Garrison, was willing to let slavery alone in the states where ot already existed.
(link)

The Civil War is avoided because:
(a) not Lincoln, but Seward becomes President. He advocates and emphasises the preservation of the Union, he doesn't focus on slavery;
(b) due to the tensions and critical situation, Seward manages not to be inaugurated on March 4 as was usual, but on December 4. This way, the Crittenden Compromise could be applied sooner and secessionism muted a little;
(c) yes, the Crittenden Compromise!

See more here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=301582&page=2
 
Well, Seward becomes more moderate because he becomes President and starts to realise his country is almost in a civil war. He thinks preserving the Union has priority over abolishing slavery, which - in his eyes - should become a gradual process of emancipation. Also, he won't have to become a lot more moderate than he was

Lincoln also said that his goal was to preserve the Union at all costs. IMO the deciding factor is not how radical Seward was, but how radical the Southern fire-eaters saw him as being. If the South saw him as similar to Lincoln, it would probably react to him the way it did to Lincoln. Maybe he or his supporters have done some behind-the-scenes politicking to convince the Southerners that he won't harm their interests, but if so, I think we need to see it.
 
Lincoln also said that his goal was to preserve the Union at all costs. IMO the deciding factor is not how radical Seward was, but how radical the Southern fire-eaters saw him as being. If the South saw him as similar to Lincoln, it would probably react to him the way it did to Lincoln. Maybe he or his supporters have done some behind-the-scenes politicking to convince the Southerners that he won't harm their interests, but if so, I think we need to see it.

Good point, Jonathan. Very good point there. And the fact is, I had been thinking about that already but forgot later. You will see it in Chapter I, Part II then, okay?
 
Chapter I, Part II

Texas, United States
18 December 1860

"Dad! Dad," Jonathan was running, "there's something you must know. You won't even believe me."
"Tell me, though, son." Carl looked searchingly at his seven-year-old son.
"The rumours wasn't just rumours. It's true that—," Jonathan looked over his shoulder, at the slaves working on the cotton plantation, about a mile away from him. "The Crittenden Compromise's been accepted by Congress. I seen it in the papers. Seward's tryin' to keep the country's both feet on the ground."
His son knew more about politics than Carl thought. He was a clever boy, for sure. But things were so complicated these days. Carl was not sure himself. This Seward, he was said to have prevented war in the States. Yet there was still uncertainty for Carl every single day: would he be allowed to have slaves on his plantation to keep it running? Without them, he knew, it would be disastrous. And slaves, well, they were just Blacks. He could not understand why the Northerners were so concerned about them. Carl was not the type of person who would let his slaves be punished extremely, have them beaten up if they did not work hard enough. Carl was a laid-back Texan farmer. He treated his slaves well. He treated them as slaves, but not badly. They had enough food, they could have families, they had some spare time. In return, they worked hard for him.

"Okay, so this means the secession crisis is gone. Or for a while at least. Oh, may God help America and help us get rid of both those Fire-Eaters and radical abolitionists."
"Yea," Jonathan hesitated but continued, "And I've read this in the newspaper... Seward said somethin' like this, 'The United States are one country and shall always be. People have often mistaken me to be a hard-line abolitionist. Yes, I've often said that I personally am against slavery, whether in San Francisco or Houston, along the Mississippi or...'" Jonathan had to think. "...'or in New York City even. I think slavery is morally wrong. But today, tomorrow, and the coming years, I will not just be William H. Seward. I will be the President of the United States and my task is to preserve our country. My best friend, and advisor, once told me that it does not matter what I think—it matters what my country thinks, and what my country thinks I think. I do not want war in my own country; there shall not be. Comprises will have to be made. Carefully, more carefully than in the past. But they will be made.' I think that's what he said."
Carl sighed. Maybe, he thought, it would all be over soon.

***

Washington, D.C., United States
18 December 1860

William Seward thought about his inauguration. It had been a historical day, equally as much as this one. He still could not believe how he had managed to have a majority of Congress support his proposal to have his inauguration on the fourth of December instead of March. This would mean—as it turned out to be true indeed—he could change the path America was taking, heading for war.
Seward was tired. It had been a long day. The Crittenden Compromise had been accepted. North of the parallel 36°30′ north, slavery became prohibited. The original compromise had been changed a little though. And he was glad about that, since he had managed to get some controversial aspects out. Seward remembered that the accepted articles were lying in front of him:

ARTICLE I

In all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situated north of latitude 36°30', slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude, slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance. And when any Territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress according to the then Federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States, with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide.

ARTICLE II

Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves.

ARTICLE III

Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia, so long as it exists in the adjoining States of Virginia and Maryland, or either, nor without the consent of the inhabitants, nor without just compensation first made to such owners of slaves as do not consent to such abolishment. Nor shall Congress at any time prohibit officers of the Federal Government, or members of Congress, whose duties require them to be in said District, from bringing with them their slaves, and holding them as such, during the time their duties may require them to remain there, and afterward taking them from the District.

ARTICLE IV

Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or to a Territory in which slaves are by law permitted to be held, whether that transportation be by land, navigable rivers, or by the sea.

ARTICLE V

That in addition to the provisions of the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, Congress shall have power to provide by law, and it shall be its duty so to provide, that the United States shall pay to the owner who shall apply for it, the full value of his fugitive slave in all cases when the marshal or other officer whose duty it was to arrest said fugitive was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation, or when, after arrest, said fugitive was rescued by force, the owner thereby prevented and obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of his fugitive slave under the said clause of the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. And in all such cases, when the United States shall pay for such fugitive, they shall have the right, in their own name, to sue the county in which said violence, intimidation, or rescue was committed, and to recover from it, with interest and damages, the amount paid by them for said fugitive slave. And the said county, after it has paid said amount to the United States may, for its indemnity, sue and recover from the wrongdoers or rescuers by whom the owner was prevented from the recovery of his fugitive slave, in like manner as the owner himself might have sued and recovered.

ARTICLE VI

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be allowed or permitted, unless there is (i) a majority in Congress that supports the ammendment, (ii) a majority in Congress that supports holding a plebiscite, and (iii) the result of the plesbiscite is at least fifty-five percent in favour of the amendment.

..."

Seward looked at the last part. The added section was not by far as drastic as the original version. Instead of strict compliance to the fugitive slave laws, now it was illegal to rescue or hide slaves, but Northerners would not be forced to help returning escaped slaves to their owners. And an escaped slave that had resided in a slavery-free state for over seven years would become officially free. Seward sighed. It was past midnight; he went to sleep.
 
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