You sound like a reed in the wind. Flighty.
"No one disputes the fact that he ignored the constitution by suspending the writ of habeous corpus...
Wrong. It is very much disputed and even Chief Justice Renquist said that the Constitutionality of a president suspending the writ is undecided to this day. It was done to stop an imminent threat to the Constitution intentionally timed by the Confederates to occur when Congress was out of session. (They only met for 3 months a year then) Confederate organized mobs in Maryland were burning railroad bridges in an attempt to isolate Washington from the rest of the North. Lincoln acted to save Washington from being cut-off and jailed the ringleaders and held them until order was restored when they were all released. Lincoln immediately called for an emergency session and when Congress returned they fully approved and applauded his actions (Just as Congress had done for Andrew Jackson when he suspended the writ in New Orleans 40 years earlier) and continued the suspension of the writ in areas of unrest. As to this day the constitutionality of a president suspending the writ when congress is out of session is undecided and to say that "No one disputes" shows your lack of understanding of both the history of events and the Constitution.
...closed down scores of newspapers who dared to criticize his administration
Wrong. Plenty of northern newspapers, both Republican and Democrat, criticized Lincoln bitterly throughout his presidency, and were never threatened in any way. Only those newspapers that advocated secession, overthrow of the government, or desertion or mutiny of soldiers were shut down. It was perfectly lawful, then and now, to do so in a time of emergency. The South on the other hand jailed and even hung dissents and those who expressed Union sentiments including over 40 in North Texas and dozens more in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, areas where the majority of people were pro-Union. Open criticism of the Confederate cause was not permitted anywhere in the south. People were burned out, beaten or hung for it. Read the records of the Southern Claims Commission if you want to see what hell pro-Union people went through in the south.
threw unknown numbers of hapless northerners into dreadful makeshift prisons
Makeshift prisons? Please document that statement. The only civilians who went to prison were those who were aiding and abetting the enemy. One person, a former congressman from Ohio, was "exiled" to inside the Confederate lines. No civilians were hung.
... and allowed his generals to practice a barbaric brand of prosecuting the war that left untold numbers of women and children starving and homeless.
BS. The war itself destroyed the economy of the south via the Confederate draft that removed virtually every able-bodied white man (with the exception of those who owned 20 or more slaves) from the civilian economy. The poor whites suffered greatly because unlike the slaveocracy that ran the south, the small subsistence farms were not left with slave labor to grow the crops. Poor whites did go hungry. Wealthy slaveowners did not. The Confederate draft left the women, the children and the aged to fend for themselves. Read the records of women writing their husbands about the hardships they faced long before Union troops entered their states. They were heartbreaking letters.
You have been suckered in by the Lost Cause Myth. Grow up and read the real history.
Yes, someone does.
"Lincoln, with his usual incisiveness, put his finger on the debate that inevitably surrounds issues of civil liberties in wartime. If the country itself is in mortal danger, must we enforce every provision safeguarding individual liberties even though to do so will endanger the very government which is created by the Constitution? The question of whether only Congress may suspend it has never been authoritatively answered to this day, but the Lincoln administration proceeded to arrest and detain persons suspected of disloyal activities, including the mayor of Baltimore and the chief of police."
-- Chief Justice Willim Rehnquist, February, 1999
And consider this:
"It was to Lincoln's credit that early in 1862, when General McClellan was about to advance upon Richmond and hopes of an early victory ran high, he ordered that all political prisoners in military custody be released upon parole and granted an amnesty for past offenses. Extraordinary arrests by the military authorities would continue: all spies, secret agents, and conspirators whom the secretary of war regarded as dangerous to the public safety would be taken up and kept in custody. But the old slate was wiped clean. And it was to Stanton's credit that he adopted a sensible course for sifting the great body of prisoners held on various charges, and releasing most of them. He appointed John A. Dix and Edwards Pierrepont as commissioners to examine those held in the New York area and render a quick verdict. Visiting Fort Lafayette and other prisons, by April 1862 they had practically finished their work. The judge advocate of the army for the Washington area was empowered to dispose of prisoners arrested in the Federal District and adjacent Virginia. Governor David Tod of Ohio was authorized to use a special agent to investigate cases, with a promise that any prisoner would be released on his recommendation."
- ---From a website
You need not to be sucked in by the neo-reb propaganda of bums like the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Kennedy brothers.
Read some reputable history.
You have no idea of what you are talking about.
Walt