Editing Gadsden Purchase (section)

=== James Gadsden and California ===
Gadsden supported [[Nullification crisis|nullification]] in 1831. When [[California]] was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850, he advocated secession by South Carolina. Gadsden considered slavery "a social blessing" and abolitionists "the greatest curse of the nation".<ref name="Richards1" />

When the secession proposal failed, Gadsden worked with his cousin [[Isaac E. Holmes|Isaac Edward Holmes]], a lawyer in San Francisco since 1851, and California state senator [[Thomas Jefferson Green]], in an attempt to divide California into northern and southern portions and proposed that the southern part allow slavery. Gadsden 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 of the South|Red River]] valley. The railway or highway would transport people to the California gold fields. Toward this end, on December 31, 1851, Gadsden asked Green to secure from the California state legislature a large land grant located between the 34th and 36th parallels, along the proposed dividing line for the two California states.<ref>{{harvp|Richards|2007|p= 126}}.</ref>

A few months later, Gadsden and 1,200 potential settlers from South Carolina and [[Florida]] submitted a petition to the [[California State Legislature|California legislature]] for permanent citizenship and permission to establish a rural district that would be farmed by "not less than Two Thousand of their African Domestics". The petition stimulated some debate, but it finally died in committee.<ref>{{harvp|Richards|2007|p=. 127}}.</ref>