Page "James Gadsden" Paragraph 9

When the secession proposal failed, Gadsden, working with his cousin Isaac Edward Holmes, a lawyer in San Francisco since 1851, and the California state senator Thomas Jefferson Green, attempted to divide California in two.

They proposed that the southern half would allow slavery.

Gadsden planned to establish a slaveholding colony there based on rice, cotton, and sugar.

He would use slave labor to build a railroad and highway, originating in either San Antonio or on the Red River, that 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 ; it would eventually serve as the dividing line for the two California states.