The United States had inherited the finest harbor on the Pacific Coast and needed to protect the harbor and its commerce from foreign threat and, with the Civil War, from domestic threat as well. California became a state in 1850 and the military quickly established. its population stimulated by the Gold Rush, California was now home to people from the North, often referred to as free solders, who were against slavery, and transplanted Southerners who supported slaver. Many Southerners passionately felt that if necessary, Southern states should be able to secede from the Union to preserve slavery and the achieve the larger idea of states rights. The Gold Rush also brought both free African American settlers, seeking their own riches, as well as slave owners who brought their African American slaves to labor in the gold fields. As new states were added to the Union, the government tried to achieve a balance by carefully admitting a balanced number of slave states and free states. After much of the national debate became afflicted, California became the 31st state, entering the union as a free state under the Compromise of 1850. However, the state’s new antislavery laws failed to cover many specifics regarding