My understanding of the POW exchange issue is that Lincoln held firm to the principle that ALL men in uniform (black and white) should be subject to exchange. Davis wanted to exchange only white prisoners and return the blacks to bondage (or worse). So why no southern complaints about Davis on this issue?
During the war, Lincoln permitted Union generals (Grant, Meade, Hunter, Sheridan, Sherman, Wild, Butler, etc.) to make war on the civilian population of the South.
Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan learned to fight confederates in the West. You can thank the southern armies and militias in Missouri and elsewhere for the tactics adopted by these men. Was there a concious decision by the northen armies to make the south feel the pain and hardship of war? Absolutely. Was it effective in taking the fight out of the southerners? you bet it was.
If Northern states were uncomfortable with enforcing the law and the Constitution, they should have amended the Constitution or seceded. If they seceded they could have run their governments the way they wanted and let the South go its own way peacefully. As it was, the North initially agreed to abide by the Constitution, then later renigged on their word of honor, and then forced their views on others.
The first US Congress banned slavery in the Northwest Territories without offending the constitution, so why should new territories be treated differently? Especially when the people LIVING in those territories didn't want slavery. It seems to me that the supremist south was forcing its views on the north and west at the point of a drawn sword called Seccesion , rather than the other way around.
Going back on your word of honor is a moral wrong. Or don't you believe that?
Again, I don't believe that making the western territories free from slavery was going back on one's word, anymore than I believe the founders banning slavery in the Northwest territories was going back on theirs. Lincoln originally had said that he wasn't about ending slavery in places that had it already. The supremist south knew that if it didn't force slavery on any new territory entering the union, that they'd come in free. This fact can be documented from any number of primary sources.
I believe the Lincoln as Tyrant perspective is a "Big Lie" and a diversion created to avoid national introspection on the causes and effects of the Civil War. The extent to which this perspective enjoys popularity amongst conservatives is questionable, and will always be fought against.
It was Union policy not to exchange prisoners regardless of what the Confederates did. As US General "Beast" Butler, Federal Commisioner (or Agent?) of Exchange, said:
In case the Confederate authorities should yield to the argument...and formally notify me that their slaves captured in our uniform would be exchanged as other soldiers were, and that they were ready to return to us all our prisoners at Andersonville and elsewhere in exchange for theirs, I had determined, with the consent of the lieutenant-general (Grant), as a last resort, in order to prevent exchange, to demand that the outlawry against me should be formally reversed and apologized for before I would further negotiate the exchange of prisoners.It may be remarked here that the rebels were willing enough to exchange prisoners at this time, man for man, were we to permit it to be done.
The Constitution required escaped slaves to be returned to their owners.
I have posted before the early 1864 offer of Confederate Agent of Exchange, Judge Robert Ould, to have Union doctors come to the Southern prisons and treat and feed the Union prisoners. This was ignored by the Federals.
In the summer of 1864, Ould offered to purchase medicines with gold, tobacco, or cotton and have Union doctors come through the lines to dispense the medicines to Union prisoners. This was ignored by Federals.
In the summer of 1864, Ould offered to release 10,000 to 15,000 Union prisoners including well men with no equivalent exchange of Confederate prisoners. This was ignored by Federals until late November 1864. Had the Federals acted sooner most of the deaths at Andersonville could have been avoided.
It seems to me that Federal policy was not to exchange prisoners because Union prisoners were a drain on the South. They sacrificed the lives of their own soldiers and Confederate soldiers as well.
The Feds cranked up PR about how badly Union prisoners were being treated. However, as Walt Whitman said in a letter to the New York Times in Dec 1864:
In my opinion, the Secretary has taken and obstinately held a position of cold-blooded policy, (that is, he thinks it policy) in this matter, more cruel than anything done by the secessionists. ... In my opinion, the anguish and death of these ten to fifteen thousand American young men, with all the added and incalculable sorrow, long drawn out, amid families at home, rests mainly on the heads of members of our own Government...
For one thing, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, which IIRC was, as a treaty, the law of the land. It appeared to permit slavery throughout that territory. The 1820 Missouri Compromise, which banned slavery in the northern part of that territory, was later held as unconstitutional by Taney in the Dred Scott decision.
I don't believe Lincoln was a tyrant, but he was not the saint that I was taught all those many years ago back in the Middle Ages. I have a problem with some of his actions and policies, as I've noted above.
If anything, the "Lincoln as Tyrant" articles you object to may actually cause people to rekindle an interest in history, a good thing. I've certainly benefitted and learned from the discussions on these boards. I thank you and others for these discussions.
The Federal generals didn't seem to have read the 1863 guide for behavior of the Union army in the field. From article 16 of that document, which was issued by Lincoln:
Military necessity does not admit of cruelty -- that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district.