DBWI: No "Sewardian Empire"

Secretary of State Seward oversaw a doubling of US territory following the Civil War, putting him down as something of a legendary figure of the era - The Seward of Empire.

Under his stewardship (Sewardship) the US purchased Greenland, Iceland, the Danish Virgin Islands, St Barthelemy, Alaska, and the Chukotka Peninsula. He also oversaw and effectively courted the annexation of British Columbia to the United States and the purchase of lands north of BC and west of the Mackenzie River, saved the Ellena Colony of the North Borneo Trading Company, and oversaw the annexation of the Dominican Republic to the United States as the country's first non-white state.


What if Seward hadn't been as successful as an advocate for American expansion? I think this might require a mix of factors - a longer messier Civil War (perhaps Tennessee joins the secessionist states?) or the assassin who was supposed to go after Seward the night Lincoln died not losing his nerve.
 
OOC: I am guessing you are having the man who was assignment to go after Johnson being given Seward instead?
 
Maybe Dominica would not be so filled with white old people today. Once air conditioning was invented and people saw the islands beauty it was flooded with pensioners. Where else would they all go? California is very expensive and Florida is the inbred joke of the nation.
 
OOC: I am guessing you are having the man who was assignment to go after Johnson being given Seward instead?

Pretty much.

Johnson dies and Seward has no issues. Being in better health, Seward is able to better push for the expansion that he desired OTL.

He pushed for BC, DR, Greenland, Iceland, and USVI OTL. St Barthelemy, Chukotka, and Yukon are just expansions of this logic, and Ellena seems like something Seward would take an interest in.
 

Toraach

Banned
Well without land border between the Evil Soviet Empire and the USA in Chukotka, the Cold War would have been less fun. I wonder also if more people would have perished if they had tried to skate across the Bering Strait to Alaska (if the Americans still bought it as was their original plan, and Tzar's will to sold just that) than was shot or perished in snows at Chukotka land border.
 
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