The Order to Follow Up the Gadsden Purchase with a Postal Convention in the Acquired Territory, Signed by President Franklin Pierce

This is our first ever document signed by President Pierce relating to the Gadsden Purchase

The Gadsden Purchase was a 29,640-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico for $10 million. The territory included lands south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande, where the United States wanted to construct a transcontinental railroad by a far southern route. This acquisition would allow for the railroad’s construction to be shorter, easier, and straighter. The purchase also aimed to resolve border issues that lingered after the Mexican-American War.

The first draft of the Gadsden Purchase treaty was signed on December 30, 1853, by James Gadsden, U.S. Minister to Mexico, and by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, president of Mexico. The U.S. Senate voted in favor of ratifying it, though with amendments, on April 25, 1854, and then sent it to President Franklin Pierce, who signed it. Mexico’s government and its Congress gave the treaty final approval on June 8, 1854, when the treaty took effect. The purchase was the last substantial territorial acquisition in the contiguous United States and defined the Mexico/U.S border. The Arizona cities of Tucson, Yuma, and Tombstone are on territory acquired by the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase.

The Gadsden Purchase directly impacted mail routes and postal services in the newly acquired territory. Yet there wasn’t a specific postal convention related to the Gadsden Purchase, and the treaty’s broader impact on land use, infrastructure, and development would clearly have effects on postal services in the region. This seemed to call for a postal convention between the United States and Mexico, and President Pierce authorized Gadsden in Mexico City to negotiate one. This is that very authorization.

In the end, the Gadsden Purchase never did get a direct postal convention, and Pierce’s authorization for one had to be cancelled. But the Gadsden Purchase did significantly influence the growth of postal services in the Southwest by facilitating infrastructure development, and after the transcontinental railroad was constructed in the 1880s, allowing for the establishment of new communities along the transcontinental railroad route.

Document signed, Washington, November 14, 1855, directing the Secretary of State to affix the seal of the United States for “a full power for Mr. Gadsden to conclude a postal convention with Mexico.” The document is marked “canceled” after the failure of the proposed postal convention.

This is our first document signed by President Pierce relating to the Gadsden Purchase in all our decades in this field.

The U.S. did not take formal military possession of the Gadsden Purchase land until 1856, at which time four companies of the First U.S. Dragoons were stationed at Tucson and afterwards at Calabazas. Late in 1856 Fort Mohave was established in the territory and was garrisoned by three companies of infantry. Fort Buchanan was opened in 1857. The military was established at these posts to protect the settlers from the Apache Indians. New Mexico was already a U.S. territory; Arizona was organized as a Territory in 1863.