This
great region is six hundred miles long by about fifty miles wide,
and embraces an area of about thirty thousand square miles. It
was acquired by purchase from Mexico, during the mission of
General Gadsden, at a cost of ten millions of dollars. In the
original treaty, as negotiated by General Gadsden, a more
southern boundary than the one adopted by the Senate of the
United States in confirming the treaty, was conceded by Santa
Anna. The line at present is irregular in its course, and cuts
off from our Territory the head of the Santa Cruz river and
valley, the Sonoita valley, the San Bernardino valley, the whole
course of the Colorado river from a point twenty miles below the
mouth of the Gila river, and, worse than all, the control of the
head of the Gulf of California, and the rich and extensive valley
of Lake Guzman, besides a large and extremely valuable silver
region, well known both to Mexicans and Americans--the planchas
de la Platte. General Gadsden's line included nearly all the
territory south of the Gila river to the thirty-first parallel of
latitude--all the advantages above mentioned--gave us the mouth
of the Colorado river, and probably a port near the head of the
gulf at Adair's Bay. We have no accurate survey of the west coast
of the Gulf of California, but I am strongly of opinion that the
original line conceded by Mexico would have thrown a portion of
the gulf into American hands, by cutting off an arm of it
extending east and north from the main body of water.
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