1) denying the rights of habeas corpus;
2) ignoring the Supreme Court, as was done in the Merryman Case;
3)jailing legislators of states loyal to the Union, as was done in Maryland;
4) shutting down dissenting newspapers, as was done in New York, Ohio, and Illinois;
5) arresting unfriendly political opponents and trying them in military courts and vanishing them from the United States, as was done to Representative Clement Vallandigham of Ohio;
6) creating a new state out of a portion of another state in flagrant violation of Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution as was done by the creation of the state of West Virginia.
7)attack upon legally held property, both slave and non-slave property;
8)the institution of a gradual income tax;
9) the establishment of an indivisible government capable of acting in whatever manner needed to create a socialist utopia
I think that’s a bit harsh, given the circumstances with which Lincoln was dealt. Many of the powers he assumed were done so because of insurrection. You can make a case that he played a game of duplicity in regards to his views on the Confederacy—one moment he treated them like a foreign combatant, the next like a band of rebels.
In winning, however, a lot of his transgressions were essentially erased by public opinion in the North, where the history was written. Had Lincoln failed and the war effort collapsed, as it nearly did on several occasions in the North, he would necessarily be viewed differently.
To call Lincoln a Marxist is a bit anachronistic, however, as Marx’s signature work Das Kapital wasn’t published until 1876, though his ideas were circulating throughout Europe.