the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Từ điển Oxford Advanced Learner 8th

the Kansas-Nebraska Act [the Kansas-Nebraska Act] BrE NAmE
a law passed by the US Congress in 1854 which was one of the causes of the Civil War. It replaced the ↑Missouri Compromise and established the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory as regions which could vote on whether to have slaves or not. This caused people to come from both the South and the North to fight about the issue, until ‘bleeding Kansas’ had two rival governments.