William Henry Seward (1801–1872) was a US senator from New York and later secretary of state in the Cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln. Seward was an abolitionist, and he helped Lincoln revise the Emancipation Proclamation before it was issued. Seward was also attacked on the night of Lincoln’s assassination but survived to serve as secretary of state to Andrew Johnson. In that office he negotiated the 1867 purchase of Alaska.