Territory of Colorado (California)

Spanish-speaking Californios, dissatisfied with inequitable taxes and land laws in the lightly populated "Cow Counties" of the southern part of California, attempted three times in the 1850s to achieve a separate statehood or territorial status separate from Northern California.

The act aimed to cut through the county of Tulare which was much larger at the time, to create a boundary line starting at the northwest corner of San Luis Obispo County, continuing eastward until it bent around the Central Valley, then cutting northeast to Nevada.

[4] The proposed border was described as follows:...a line drawn eastward from the west boundary of the state along the sixth standard parallel south of the Mount Diablo meridian, east to the summit of the coast range; thence southerly following said summit to the seventh standard parallel; thence due east on said standard parallel to its intersection with the northwest border of Los Angeles county; thence northeast along said boundary to the eastern border of the state.

[5]The proposal was sent to Washington, D.C., with a strong advocate in Governor Milton Latham, who continued to shepherd the document after he resigned the governorship to become a US senator.

However the secession crisis following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 led to the proposal never coming to a vote.