The Kansas Nebraska Act was all about having Kansas and Nebraska actually vote as to whether they would be slave state or free. The history of the US was that southern states entering the union were slave and the northern were free. Kansas, next door to Missouri and in the same line of progression as Kentucky was assumed to be a slave state until the 1854 Kansas Nebraska Act instigated by Senator Douglas of Chicago who rammed the act through congress.
His motivation was his deep investment in railroad stocks. The westward expansion of the railroad into new territory would line his pockets. If Kansas and Nebraska were turned into states for legal settlement the railroad would expand. The rest is history. Kansas and Missouri fought the civil war starting in 1854. The western part of Missouri is known as "the burnt district" after general order 11 in August 1863 was precipitated by Quantrill's raid on Lawrence. General Order 11 removed every human being from the western counties bordering bleeding Kansas. Every house, barn and building was burned to the ground. The crops were destroyed, farm animals killed or removed. It was a wasteland till after the war. Never before and never since in US history has this scorched earth policy been used on US citizens. But it can and will happen again unless the citizens are armed. Thus the intense interest of Missourians in personal rights and freedoms. You have to present a birth certificate to get a drivers license in MO. :-)
I think it important to stress for those less familiar with the history that this covered only the farms and crossroads in three and a half counties south of the Blue River in Kansas City and exempted those in and surrounding a number of settled towns such as Harrisonville etc.
It was one of the many notible incidents of the Bleeding Kansas legacy.
I was born in Jackson County, Mo, grew up in Johnson and Douglas County, Kansas and spent much of my adult years in Platte County, Mo.
I lived in a house in Lawrence for a while that still had a mini ball in the front porch beam. My great grand father road with the and was made a Postmaster by Lincoln.