PC: Reverse Civil War?

It seems there are often discussions of alternate US' in which the north secedes, generally as the FSA, representing the Federal States of America or the Free States of America. Generally, the FSA secedes for abolitionist or pro-centralization reasons. My question is this: is the north likely to secede over abolitionism?
 
Northern disunionism is an interesting subject, even if northern secession was ultimately unlikely. (I'm leaving aside New England secession during the War of 1812.) It was not merely a Garrisonian eccentricity; a considerable number of antislavery northerners did at least toy with it from time to time. Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire once said: "If this Union, with all its advantages, has no other cement than the blood of human slavery, let it perish." (Quoted in David Potter, *The Impending Crisis 1848-1861*, p. 45) Senator Wade of Ohio stated in 1854 that "I go for the death of slavery whether the Union survives it or not." (Quoted in Brian Holden Reid, *The Origins of the American Civil War* [London and New York: Longman 1996], p. 147) Also, at various times in the 1860-61 crisis, Charles Sumner, Joshua Giddings, Gerrit Smith and other abolitionists advocated the peaceful dissolution of "this blood-stained Union." (Quoted in Kenneth Stampp, *And the War Came* (Phoenix books edition, pp. 247-8)

Still, all this was mostly rhetorical--it was people saying "I would rather have disunion than another cowardly compromise with the Slave Power." Most of the people who said this (a) were much more radical on slavery than most northerners (including a majority of Republicans), and (b) except for the Garrisonians, didn't really believe it *was* necessary to choose between Union and antislavery. Disunion sentiment in the North was a minority view even among anti-slavery radicals. Consider the views of Massachusetts Radical Henry Wilson (later Vice-President under Grant) when asked to support an 1857 "Disunion Convention" at Worcester: he advised the convention to "leave all the impotent and puerile threats against the Union to the Southern slave propagandists..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=Wl38uYb85DgC&pg=PA141

The questions are: (a) what would get them to believe that the cause of antislavery within the Union was doomed, and (b) make them a majority in the North--or at least in enough northern states to make a serious movement for secession possible?

The only thing I can think of is a Breckinridge victory in 1860 [1]--having the "slave power" win yet another victory will by itself be tremendously embittering--followed by a war in Latin America which northerners would see as a war for slavery, and also by the "second Dred Scott" decision Lincoln had warned about. (A "second Dred Scott" decision *immediately* establishing slavery in the North was unlikely. What was more likely and more insidious was the possibility that the court would establish slavery in the North *gradually* by first recognizing slaveholders' rights briefly to pass through northern states with their human "property" and then step by step expanding that right to one of staying there with the slaves indefinitely--and perhaps even buying and selling them. [2] What worried Lincoln was that the gradualness of the process--combined with Douglas' public moral indifference to slavery and view that a Supreme Court decision was a "Thus saith the Lord" that cannot be questioned--would mute northern outrage.)

Very likely, though, even if Breckinridge (or Lane) *is* elected, even if there *is* a US war in Mexico or the Caribbean which northerners see as pro-slavery in motivation, and even if there *is* a Supreme Court decision establishing the right of southerners to "transit or sojourn" through the North with their slaves (the case of *Lemmon v. New York* http://books.google.com/books?id=SdrYv7S60fgC&pg=PA1174 would presumably have come before the Supreme Court if there had been no secession) the majority of Northerenrs will oppose secession, hoping that 1864 will offer one last chance to set things right through electoral means.

[1] Perfectly conceivable if the election goes into the House. Or if the House deadlocks, his running mate Joseph Lane--who as a "doughface" would if anything be more hated by antislavery northerners than Breckinridge would be--could become acting president by virtue of being chosen as vice-president by the Senate.

[2] In *Corfield v. Coryell* 6 F. Cas 450 (1823) Justice Bushrod Washington gave the famous explication of privileges and immunities as including, among other things:

"the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject nevertheless to such restraints as the government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole. The right of the citizens of one state to pass through or reside in any other state, for the purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the state, to take, hold, and *dispose* of property, either real or personal." (Emphasis added.)
 
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If the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that legalized slavery in the North (as was widely believed to be imminent once Lemnon v. New York came to the Court), the North would probably secede
 
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