The U.S. purchase of what became the southern parts of the states of New Mexico and Arizona resolved festering problems in U.S.-Mexican relations and completed the acquisition of all the territory that would eventually constitute the continental United States.
In 1853, newly elected president Franklin Pierce appointed James Gadsden of Charleston, South Carolina, as minister to Mexico. Along with other diplomatic duties, Gadsden’s immediate task was to negotiate a new treaty with Mexico, which the United States had defeated in the Mexican War only five years earlier. The need for such an arrangement had grown out of imperfections and conflicting interpretations of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
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The major objective in Gadsden’s mission, however, was acquisition of a land cession from Mexico. The United States desired territory to resolve a potentially explosive dispute arising from the failure of the Mexican-American Boundary Commission to mark satisfactorily the southwestern boundary between the two countries along the Rio Grande
President Franklin Pierce.
In many ways, there was no person better fitted for these diplomatic tasks than Gadsden. Gadsden was not an experienced diplomat, but his diverse background had provided him with abilities adequate for the post. His career included military service as a close adviser to former president Andrew Jackson, minor political offices in Florida’s territorial government, and an extensive business background as president of the Charleston Railroad Company. He was not widely known outside his native southern soil, but he was a close acquaintance of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis
Perhaps the major factor in Davis’s recommendation of Gadsden resulted from their mutual interest in the development of southern railroads. From his position as president of the Charleston Railroad Company, Gadsden had become, by 1850, perhaps the most conspicuous champion of southern railroads and was instrumental in promoting virtually every contemporary railroading venture in the region. Like many railroad supporters of the antebellum period, Davis and Gadsden increasingly came to see the economic and military value of a railroad connecting the two coasts. Such a road would facilitate better defense of the Pacific settlements, but just as important, it would advance the commercial interests of the nation, providing an opportunity to develop better trade and commerce with the Far East.
The Gadsden Purchase Territory
Both Davis
Gadsden advocated a southern route, with Memphis as the eastern terminus on the Mississippi River. Traversing the countryside along the thirty-second parallel through El Paso, Texas,
Gadsden was instructed not only to resolve the southern boundary dispute but also to purchase a sufficient amount of land to facilitate the southern route. Exactly how much land was sufficient and what price the United States was willing to pay for it were not clear, but Secretary of State William Marcy
Mexican leaders did not entirely share the U.S. view about the land in question. Since the end of the Mexican War, Mexico’s attitudes toward its northern neighbor had been marked not only by hostility but also, more significantly, by an inclination to be suspicious of the territorial designs of the United States. In the United States, southern expansionists, desiring to increase slave-holding territory, were noticeably evident; this presence made Mexico, already victimized by U.S. imperialism, even more apprehensive. In the United States, the notion of “manifest destiny”
Despite Mexican fears, Gadsden believed that a satisfactory treaty could be obtained. If the United States were willing to pay liberally, he said, an agreement embracing all of the administration’s objectives, not just a land purchase, could be achieved. The fact that General Antonio López de Santa Anna
Gadsden sought to purchase, for fifty million U.S. dollars, 250,000 square miles of Mexican territory, an amount that certainly would have been consistent with the wishes of Jefferson Davis
Complicated by a web of intrigue, chicanery, and blusterism, negotiations ensued for several months. The three-man Mexican negotiating team headed by Minister of Foreign Relations Manuel Diez de Bonilla
Nevertheless, on December 31, 1853, Gadsden and the other plenipotentiaries assembled at the American Legation Headquarters, where they signed what was to be referred to in the United States as the Gadsden Treaty. The purchase area agreed to in the treaty consisted of 55,000 square miles of territory in what would become the southern parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Domestic politics, largely influenced by the sectional issue of slavery, later caused Congress to reduce the cession by approximately 9,000 square miles. The final price tag for the lands covered in the treaty was $10 million.
Although Gadsden had failed to accomplish all that either he or the administration had hoped, most people in the United States had reasons to be pleased with the treaty’s provisions. The agreement had resolved all the immediate and potentially dangerous issues with Mexico and thus preserved peaceful relations. It also provided for the acquisition of the much-coveted southern route for the Pacific railroad, although because of the regional rivalry, many regarded this feature to be of minimal value. Article VII granted U.S. citizenship
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Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. New York: HarperPerennial, 1991. Contains some material on Davis’s relationship with Gadsden and the treaty. -
Devine, David. Slavery, Scandal and Steel Rails: The 1854 Gadsden Purchase and the Building of the Second Transcontinental Railroad Across Arizona and New Mexico Twenty-Five Years Later. Lincoln, Nebr.: iUniverse, 2004. Study of how Gadsden advocated the need for a southern cross-country railroad that explains his role in acquiring land from Mexico to construct the route and shows what happened afterward. -
Fogel, Robert W. Railroads and American Economic Growth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964. Good introduction to the important issue of railroading in the antebellum period and its role in the expansion of the nation’s economy. -
Garber, Paul Neff. The Gadsden Treaty. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959. Although dated in many ways, this work remains the most comprehensive published study of all aspects of the Gadsden purchase. -
Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. This book is primarily an account of the sectional crisis of the antebellum period, but it also provides insights into the role of Gadsden’s treaty in the controversy.
Louisiana Purchase
Burr’s Conspiracy
Mexican War of Independence
Mexican War
United States Occupies California and the Southwest
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Ends Mexican War
Pacific Railroad Surveys
Lincoln Signs the Homestead Act
Russia Sells Alaska to the United States
Hawaii’s Last Monarch Abdicates
Jefferson Davis; James Gadsden; Franklin Pierce; Antonio López de Santa Anna.