In these precarious times, it takes courage to approach others with an idea for a new project you believe will pay off in the long run. And it takes special courage to stand by your idea when no one but you can see its value.

William Seward had that kind of courage.

Born in New York in 1801, Seward was a longtime voice for the unpopular idea. He was an outspoken opponent of slavery before it became a cause célèbre. As an attorney, he advocated for reviled defendants—including a black man charged with multiple homicide. The man was mentally ill, and by applying the relatively new insanity defense, Seward succeeded in seeing that he was imprisoned rather than executed.

First a state senator, then two-term governor of New York, he lost his bid for re-election after supporting state funding for schools for immigrants, operated by their own clergy and taught in their native language. Anti-Catholic feelings ran high in New York at the time. And since the controversial funding plan included Catholic parochial schools, it seemed Seward’s political career was over. He spent seven years in private practice before returning to the public stage as a U.S. Senator. As his Whig party faltered, he became a Republican and campaigned heavily for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. With Lincoln’s election, Seward was tapped to be Secretary of State, a post he continued to hold through the administration of Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson.

Bargain shopping

Seward was a great believer in Manifest Destiny—the idea that the United States was divinely destined to expand its borders throughout North America. And as Johnson took over for the slain Lincoln, Seward had his eyes on a large prize: the Russian territory of Alaska.

The land mass at the northwestern tip of Canada was nearly 600,000 square miles—more than twice the size of Texas. And the price he’d negotiated was the whopping sum of two cents an acre: $7.2 million, or about $100 million in today’s dollars.

To say the public didn’t see Alaska’s value would be an understatement. People thought Seward had lost his mind.

The Secretary of State and his boss became the butt of the joke on every editorial page in the nation. “Seward’s Folly” was the most popular term for the impending purchase, but other pet phrases were “Seward’s Icebox” and “Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden.”

But Seward wasn’t deterred, the President stuck with him, and the Senate okayed the March 1867 purchase … by a single vote.

Purchase appreciation

Later, when asked about his greatest achievement as Secretary of State, Seward didn’t hesitate: “The purchase of Alaska—but it will take the people of the United States a century before they realize it.”

That’s one thing Seward got wrong. Although he died in 1872 and didn’t get to see his vision vindicated, it didn’t take a century for the public to realize Alaska’s benefit. The 1890s gold rush was the first indication of the territory’s natural resources. And later discoveries of vast oil reserves made the purchase one of the best bargains in U.S. history.