The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 organized the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, allowed residents of those territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, and repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had set the parallel of 36°30′ as the boundary north of which slavery would not be permitted in the territories. It had four immediate results: The outbreak of the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict, The rise of the Republican Party, The defeat of President Franklin Pierce in 1856, and The eventual secession of the Southern states and American Civil War.