Funny. Never heard any of this, except the Gadsen Purchase, in my high history classes or in college either.
“My administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion,” said Pierce, a handsome 48-year-old New Hampshire Democrat whose political climb had been so rapid that he was, at the time, the youngest man ever elected president. “Our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe,” he declared, “render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection.” In fact, Pierce claimed, it was “essential” that the United States acquire new territory for the sake of its commercial rights and world peace.
Pierce embarked on an aggressive program of attempted expansion. He launched discussions on acquiring Formosa (present-day Taiwan), Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, and even the so-called “guano islands” of the Pacific. His administration schemed without success to annex Hawaii, which was then an independent kingdom. For many Northerners, all this fueled a suspicion that Pierce’s real goal was to secure new territories into which slavery could be expanded. That suspicion exploded into scandal in 1854, with the publication of a confidential document in which three US diplomats laid out a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain — with or without Spain’s assent.
In the end, Pierce’s expansionist schemes met with success only once. For $10 million, the United States bought a strip of land from Mexico, adding about 30,000 square miles to southern New Mexico and Arizona. Known as the Gadsden Purchase, the acquisition was intended to provide a right of way for a proposed southern rail line to the West Coast
