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It was a simple prediction based on the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred-Scott ruling which could easily be interpreted to imply that slavery could not be outlawed in the North! It meant the US was on the path to becoming a 100% slave-nation under Democrats, so the the old "half-slave, half-free" would not long endure.

IMO taney's blatant indulgence in judicial activism did more to precipitate hostilities between the north and south than any other government act. There existed hot-heads on both sides maintaining a "shouting war" but the Dreaded Scott case set us inescapably on the path to war.

rockrr: "IMO taney's blatant indulgence in judicial activism did more to precipitate hostilities between the north and south than any other government act."

Taney was the original "DiogenesLamp" arguing, in effect, the Constitution prohibits abolition.
This was the source of Lincoln's "house divided" remarks, that the nation must now become all slave or all free, because one more Supreme Court ruling like Dred-Scott would make the US 100% a slave-nation.

I would add to that the 1850 Compromise, which removed the job of returning fugitive slaves from Northern state authorities to the Federal Government.
Together with Dred-Scott, these made Northern state laws abolishing slavery irrelevant.

So after 1857 the US was on the road to becoming an all-slave nation.
And Northerners didn't like that, not one bit, which is why they voted Republican in ever greater numbers in 1858 and 1860.