At the time, South Carolina was engulfed in the Nullification Crisis.

The federal government had introduced heavy tariffs in 1828 and 1832, which South Carolina (and several other states) heavily opposed. In November 1832, a month before the prophecy, South Carolina declared the federal tariff null and void in the state of South Carolina and started military preparations to fight the expected federal attempt to restore the authority of the federal government.

In December 1832, when the prophecy was made, there were probably a lot of people who believed a civil war was only days away.

We have a tendency to remember prophecies that are actually fulfilled and forget the ones that were not. However, the prophecy fails in several regards - war did not come "shortly" but rather 28 years later. Great Britain and other nations did not get involved, and the southern states never managed to call any European allies. War was not poured over all nations, there were no great slave rebellion. It would be hard to claim any famine, plague, earthquake or thunder of heaven over the world at the time either.

The Nullification Crisis ended in February 1833 when a compromise tariff was agreed upon and South Carolina rescinded its nullification in March.

Thomas Jefferson wrote about this issue to William Short in 1820; twelve years before Joseph Smith wrote his prophesy.

Here is an excerpt from the letter:

Altho' I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write, talk or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs & therefore had ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missourie question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of federal & republican, threatened nothing because it existed in every state, and united them together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral & political with a geographical line, once concieved, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion & renewing irritations until it would kindle such mutual & mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question: not by the time which has been so confidently counted on. The laws of nature controul this, but by the Potomack Ohio, and Missouri, or more probably the Missisipi upwards to our Northern boundary, my only comfort & confidence is that I shall not live to see this: and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers sacrifices of life & fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self government? This treason against human hope will signalize their epoch in future history, as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.

The idea of the Union becoming separated by the Missouri Compromise and the issue of slavery was not new by the 1830's.

Do we have any authenticated predictions from 1832? It's quite popular among "prophets" to backdate successful predictions, after all.