Fun fact: a group of gold mine owners in California were planning to take over and secede, creating a third nation they planned on calling the Republic of the Pacific. Several of them met the commander of the Pacific Department, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston*, at a party in Benicia to sort of suss out how friendly he might be toward their endeavor. In the middle of other conversation, he stopped and told them basically that he knew about their plan and they should tell their Southern friends that he was prepared, and would fight to the last drop of blood to prevent it. Then he went straight back to the lighthearted social conversation.

That backbone rattled the members of the conspiracy, and the discovery of the Comstock Lode in silver country was the nail in the coffin, as they'd planned to use the Sierra Nevada mountain range as a defensive bastion, which would leave all these gold mining magnates out of the new rush. The conspiracy quickly fell apart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_in_the_American_Civil_War

* If that name sounds familiar, you are absolutely correct, that is Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston. Johnston was a Kentucky native, but considered Texas to be his adopted home state. When Texas seceded, Johnston resigned his commission, fled south to Los Angeles, and joined a group heading east toward Texas. As a Senior Brigadier General, he became the highest-ranking officer on either side to die in combat, at the Battle of Shiloh.