14 Facts About Gadsden Purchase

Gadsden Purchase had become the president of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company in 1839; about a decade later, the company had laid 136 miles of track extending west from Charleston, South Carolina, and was $3 million in debt.

Gadsden Purchase wanted to connect all Southern railroads into one sectional network.

Gadsden Purchase was concerned that the increasing railroad construction in the North was shifting trade in lumber, farm and manufacturing goods from the traditional north–south route based on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to an east–west axis that would bypass the South.

Gadsden Purchase saw Charleston, his home town, losing its prominence as a seaport.

Gadsden Purchase considered slavery "a social blessing" and abolitionists "the greatest curse of the nation".

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Gadsden Purchase planned to establish a slave-holding colony there based on rice, cotton, and sugar, and wanted to use slave labor to build a railroad and highway that originated in either San Antonio or the Red River valley.

Businessmen like Gadsden Purchase, who advocated economic diversification, were in the minority.

Gadsden Purchase initially rejected the extension of the border further south to the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Gadsden Purchase initially insisted on reparations for the damages caused by American Indian raids, but agreed to let an international tribunal resolve this.

Gadsden Purchase realized that Santa Anna needed money and passed this information along to Secretary Marcy.

Gadsden Purchase had advised Santa Anna that "the spirit of the age" would soon lead the northern Mexican states to secede so he might as well sell them now.

Gadsden Purchase suggested that northern Senators would block the treaty to deny the South a railroad.

Gadsden Purchase took the revised treaty back to Santa Anna, who accepted the changes.

In 2012, the Gadsden Purchase was featured in a segment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.