civilians on both sides. The American diplomatic mission headed by Minister Charles Francis Adams, Sr. proved much more successful than the Confederate missions, which were never officially recognized. Historian Don Doyle has argued that the Union victory had a major impact on the course of world history. The Union victory energized popular democratic forces. A Confederate victory, on the other hand, would have meant a new birth of slavery, not freedom. Historian Fergus Bordewich, following Doyle, argues that: The North's victory decisively proved the durability of democratic government. Confederate independence, on the other hand, would have established An American model for reactionary politics and race-based repression that would likely have cast an international shadow into the twentieth century and perhaps beyond." Alaska and Canada Secretary of State Seward was an enthusiastic expansionist, but he had minimal support in Congress. In 1867, Russia, fearing a possible war with Great Britain, decided it would quickly lose its Alaska colony in a war, and decided to sell it to the United States for $7.2 million. The bargain was much too good to pass up, especially since it gave the Americans a major presence in the North Pacific and blocked the British from expanding there. Public opinion was generally supportive, despite much humor about the folly of purchasing a giant "Polar bear garden." American soldiers replace the Russians, and the Russian merchants involved in the fur trade all left. However some Russian Orthodox priests remained as missionaries among the Alaska natives. Alaska attracted almost no attention until the 1890s, when gold was discovered in the neighboring Yukon district of Canada, and the easiest way for miners to get there was through Alaska. In addition gold was found in Alaska itself. Relations with Britain (and its Canadian colonies) were tense. British officials were negligent in allowing Confederates to raid Vermont in November 1864. For Washington, a high-priority long-term issue was warships built by British shipyards and outfitted for the Confederacy, especially the CSS Alabama, over vehement protests from American diplomats. After 1865 Washington at the minimum demanded the British to pay for the damages done by the warships known as the Alabama Claims. But the maximum demands were much higher. Powerful Republican Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts argued that British blockade runners were responsible for sustaining the Confederate war effort by smuggling weapons into Southern ports, thus prolonging the Civil War by two years. He