Gadsden Purchase

In 1853, Jefferson Davis (U.S. Secretary under President Pierce) sent James Gadsden, U.S. Minister to Mexico, to negotiate the purchase with Santa Anna for a strip of land on the border between Mexico and Texas. The purchase is significant because it established the southern border between the United States and Mexico. Also, the land was desired by the United States because it was considered a practical route for a southern railroad to the Pacific.  The purchase was completed in 1854 and cost ten million dollars for 30,000 acres of land which is now southern New Mexico and Arizona. Eventually, in 1861, the Southern Pacific branch of the Central Pacific Railroad was built in that location.

This purchase of dry desert added animosity and sectionalism between the North and the South because northerers believed that the purchase of land was pointless for such a substatial amount of money. There was nothing the U.S. could do with the dry, cactus-strewn desert floor, in their opinion.