If they can sell a part of our country, they can sell the whole of it!" -- Mr.Spalding of Ohio, on the other hand, maintained that "notwithstanding all the sneers that have been cast on Alaska, if it could be sold again, individuals would take it off our hand and pay us two or three millions for the bargain." -- General Schenck thought the purchase in itself highly objectionable, but was "willing to vote the money because the treaty has been made with a friendly power; one of those that stood by us,--almost the only one that stood by us when all the rest of the powers of the world seemed to be turning away from us in our recent troubles." -- Mr.Stevens supported the measure on the ground that it was a valuable acquisition to the wealth and power of the country.

He argued also in favor of the right of the Senate to make the treaty.
-- Mr.Leonard Myers was sure that if we did not acquire Alaska it would be transferred to Great Britain.

"The nation," said he, "which struggled so hard for Vancouver and her present Pacific boundary, and which still insists on having the little island of San Juan, will never let such an opportunity slip.

Canada, as matters now stand, would become ours some day could her people learn to be Americans; but never, if England secures Alaska." -- Mr.Higby of California answered the objections relating to climate.
"I do not know," said he, "whether the people of the East yet believe what has been so often declared, that our winters on the Pacific are nearly as mild as our summers, and yet such is the fact.

In my own little village, situated over fourteen hundred feet above the level of the ocean, I have seen a plant growing in the earth green through all the months from October to April." -- Mr.Shellabarger opposed the purchase.