Turning from the question of title, which time and testimony have
already settled, I meet the inquiry, Why does Russia part with
possessions associated with the reign of her greatest ruler and filling
an important chapter of geographical history? Here I am without
information not open to others. But I do not forget that the first
Napoleon, in parting with Louisiana, was controlled by three several
considerations. First, he needed the purchase-money for his treasury;
secondly, he was unwilling to leave this distant unguarded territory
a prey to Great Britain, in the event of hostilities, which seemed
at hand; and, thirdly, he was glad, according to his own remarkable
language, “to establish forever the power of the United States, and
give to England a maritime rival that would sooner or later humble her
pride.”[7] Such is the record of history. Perhaps a similar record may
be made hereafter with regard to the present cession. There is reason
to imagine that Russia, with all her great empire, is financially poor;
so that these few millions may not be unimportant to her. It is by
foreign loans that her railroads have been built and her wars aided.
All, too, must see that in those “coming events” which now more than
ever “cast their shadows before” it will be for her advantage not to
hold outlying possessions from which thus far she has obtained no
income commensurate with the possible expense for their protection.
Perhaps, like a wrestler, she strips for the contest, which I trust
sincerely may be averted. Besides, I cannot doubt that her enlightened
Emperor, who has given pledges to civilization by an unsurpassed act of
Emancipation, would join the first Napoleon in a desire to enhance the
maritime power of the United States.
These general considerations are reinforced, when we call to mind the
little influence which Russia has been able thus far to exercise in
this region. Though possessing dominion for more than a century, the
gigantic power has not been more genial or productive there than the
soil itself. Her government is little more than a name or a shadow. It
is not even a skeleton. It is hardly visible. Its only representative
is a fur company, to which has been added latterly an ice company. The
immense country is without form and without light, without activity and
without progress. Distant from the imperial capital, and separated from
the huge bulk of Russian empire, it does not share the vitality of a
common country. Its life is solitary and feeble. Its settlements are
only encampments or lodges. Its fisheries are only a petty perquisite,
belonging to local or personal adventurers rather than to the commerce
of nations.
In these statements I follow the record. So little were these
possessions regarded during the last century that they were scarcely
recognized as a component part of the empire. I have now before me an
authentic map, published by the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg
in 1776, and reproduced at London in 1780, entitled “General Map
of the Russian Empire,”[8] where you will look in vain for Russian
America, unless we except the links of the Aleutian chain nearest to
the two continents. Alexander Humboldt, whose geographical insight was
unerring, in his great work on New Spain, published in 1811, after
stating that he is able from an official document to give the position
of the Russian factories on the American continent, says that they are
“for the most part mere collections of sheds and cabins, but serving as
store-houses for the fur-trade.” He remarks further that “the larger
part of these small Russian colonies communicate with each other only
by sea”; and then, putting us on our guard not to expect too much from
a name, he proceeds to say that “the new denomination of ‘Russian
America,’ or ‘Russian Possessions on the New Continent,’ must not lead
us to think that the coasts of Behring’s Basin, the peninsula of
Alaska, or the country of the Tchuktchi have become Russian provinces
in the sense given to this word in speaking of the Spanish provinces of
Sonora or New Biscay.”[9] Here is a distinction between the foothold of
Spain in California and the foothold of Russia in North America which
will at least illustrate the slender power of the latter in this region.
In ceding possessions so little within the sphere of her empire,
embracing more than one hundred nations or tribes, Russia gives up no
part of herself; and even if she did, the considerable price paid,
the alarm of war which begins to fill our ears, and the sentiments of
friendship declared for the United States would explain the transaction.