Gadsden Purchase

The Gadsden Purchase is a tiny strip of barren wasteland which today serves as a defacto neutral zone betwixt the United States of Mexico and the mighty American Empire. Unauthorized entry by either side is considered to be an act of war, and, as such, is generally frowned upon.

¡Ay, Caramba!, That's a Whole Lotta Pesos!

This strategic hunk of worthless land (several hundreds of miles long and two inches wide) was acquired on behalf the United States from Mexican real estate swindlers in 1812 by Seward Gadsden (who was Secretary of the Continental Interior from 1803 to 1876). The ill-advised purchase, amounting to a total of 652,108,437,784,147,033,599,694,298 Mexican pesos (approximately $49.79 in three easy monthly installments), was perceived by the uninformed Americans of the time as utterly inane and stupid, and was frequently referred to as "Gadsden's Fuck-up" in the tabloid press.

Eventual Statehood

After much acrimonious and stormy debate in Washington DC, Gadsden Territory was finally granted statehood status in 1973, even though nobody ever resided there, and nobody currently plans to do so (at least officially). As of 2006, the State of Gadsdenia^[1] is represented in Congress by 0 senators, 0 representatives, and 0 stars on the American flag (per official 2000 Census results which totally failed to take into account the millions of barefoot Mexican-American borderline crossers (who forgot to fill in and send back their census forms for some reason) and the billions of poisonous killer scorpions).

Politics

In presidential elections, Gadsdenia is allotted a total of 0 electoral votes, and has consistently voted Republican by whopping margins every single time.

Additional Text which is Awkward to Cram Into the Indicated Sentence

[1] Some nitpickering historian types prefer to call it the Commonwealth of Gadsdenia, but that's their problem, isn't it?