A dispute having arisen with Mexico about the boundary the war had established, President Pierce settled it by buying the territory in question (1853) for ten millions of dollars. General James Gadsden negotiated its transfer, and for him it was called the Gadsden Purchase. The United States thus acquired the strip of country lying between the Gila River and the present southern boundary of Arizona. Prior to its purchase it had formed part of the Mexican State of Sonora. Mr. Gadsden exerted himself to secure with it the port of Guaymas on the Gulf of California, but was not sustained by Congress in his effort to do so.
At the period of its cession to us Arizona was practically unknown except to hunters and trappers or to the few who had read the accounts of the early Spanish explorers. Mr. Gadsden was ridiculed for making the purchase, and Congress censured for squandering the people's money upon an arid waste destitute of sufficient wood and water to sustain a population of civilized beings. The failure of the Spaniards to found any considerable settlements was dwelt upon. Stories of mines of fabulous wealth that Arizona held locked up in her mountains had indeed come down from a remote time, and were more or less current abroad, but few believed in them, or could see any compensating advantage to accrue to us for the millions Congress had spent. Government, however, caused the territory immediately to be surveyed with the view of settling the question whether we had or had not been cheated in making the purchase.
MISSION SAN XAVIER DEL BAC, NEAR TUCSON.
II.
THE CONTEST FOR FREE SOIL.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
At the period now reached by our story the political sense of the people, in all things touching the national life, was represented by the Whig and Democratic parties. There was yet another body formed to prevent the coming in of any more slave States, and therefore called the Free-Soil party. This last party had only come into being since the war with Mexico, and was not yet strong enough to successfully cope with the older ones for control in national affairs; but it was growing stronger every day.