When California applied for statehood, Southern states feared that they would lose equality in the Senate," since California was to be admitted as a "free" state.
A state is a territory with its own institutions and populations. A sovereign state is a state with its own institutions and populations that has a permanent population, territory, and government. It must also have the right and capacity to make treaties and other agreements with other states.
Southern states feared that California could choose to be free or slave, and they would choose free which would make the free and slave states unequal in the senate, and they could lose power and votes which could mean they could vote to make the south free too.
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