Why did southerners support the kansas-nebraska act? wikianswers?

Because it allowed citizens to decide whether they had slaves or not: the law passed in the United States, in 1854, was enacted to create the states of Nebraska and Kansas, which, in addition, were forbidden to have legal slaves by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, thus, with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Missouri Compromise was annulled, without achieving that Kansas attained a legal slave state, allowed the citizens of the newly formed states, to have votes to decide whether slavery was allowed or not. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the precursor to the Civil War of 1861.