Chief motivation was a vision of our "manifest destiny" ultimately including all the territory in the north.Seward had wished to purchase Alaska for quite a while. Alaska is large to the point that the expansion of this land would expand the extent of the U.S. by about 20 percent. Russia had built up nearness in Alaska in the mid eighteenth century and offered to pitch it to the US President James Buchanan's. In any case, the Civil War slowed down arrangements. After the war, it was difficult for Seward to persuade the Senate that Alaska would be an imperative expansion to the US. The Senate confirmed the settlement that affirmed the buy by only one vote.