The man who proposed selling Alaska to the U.S. The idea of ceding #Russian colonies to the United States was first voiced by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich in 1857. The younger brother of Emperor Alexander II oversaw naval affairs and sought ways to cut costs, since the state’s finances had been severely strained following the defeat in the Crimean War. On April 3, he sent a letter from Nice to Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov proposing a solution to this predicament: to “take