"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.
Rehnquist is wrong. His claim today that the issue has never been settled in court was contradicted back in 1862 by a supreme court justice who said the exact opposite - that it had ruled consistently against the president's assertion of that power. Nobody thought that the president could suspend the writ unilaterally among the founders and in The Lincoln's own day until he unconstitutionally "invented" his own "right" to do so.
See for yourself in their own words:
"The privileges and benefit of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall be enjoyed in this Government, in the most expeditious and ample manner; and shall not be suspended by the Legislature, except upon the most urgent and pressing occasions, and for a limited time not exceeding months." - Proposal of Charles Pickney on habeas corpus, Constitutional Convention of 1787, submitted to committee for consideration and later adopted in its current language as Article I, Section 9, Clause 2, pertaining to the legislature
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States...The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." - United States Constitution, Article I
"In the same section it is provided, that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion and invasion, the public safety may require it." This clause limits the power of the legislature to deprive a citizen of the right of habeas corpus, to particular cases viz. those of rebellion and invasion; the reason is plain, because in no other cases can this power be exercised for the general good." - Robert Yates, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Anti-Federalist #9 "Brutus"
"The people by adopting the federal constitution, give congress general powers to institute a distinct and new judiciary, new courts, and to regulate all proceedings in them, under the eight limitations mentioned in a former letter; and the further one, that the benefits of the habeas corpus act shall be enjoyed by individuals." - Federal Farmer (believed to be Richard Henry Lee), Anti-Federalist #16
"The decision that the individual shall be imprisoned must always precede the application for a writ of habeas corpus, and this writ must always be for the purpose of revising that decision, and therefore appellate in its nature. But this point also is decided in Hamilton's case and in Burford's case. If at any time the public safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this act in the courts of the United States, it is for the legislature to say so. That question depends on political considerations, on which the legislature is to decide." - United States Supreme Court, Ex Parte Bollman & Swartwout, authored by Justice John Marshall, 1807
"The safest and best restriction, therefore, arises from the nature of the cases in which Congress are authorized to exercise that power [of suspending habeas corpus] at all, namely, in those of rebellion or invasion. These are clear and certain terms, facts of public notoriety, and whenever these shall cease to exist, the suspension of the writ must necessarily cease also." - Francis Dana, presenter of the Constitution to the Massachussetts ratification convention
"Those respecting the press, religion, & juries, with several others, of great value, were accordingly made; but the Habeas corpus was left to the discretion of Congress, and the amendment against the reeligibility of the President was not proposed by that body." - Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821
"The Constitution seems to have secured this benefit [habeas corpus] to the citizen by the description of the writ, and in an unqualified manner admitting its efficacy, while it declares that it shall not he suspended unless when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety shall require it. This writ is believed to be known only in countries governed by the common law, as it is established in England; but in that country the benefit of it may at any time be withheld by the authority of parliament, whereas we see that in this country it cannot be suspended even in cases of rebellion or invasion, unless the public safety shall require it. Of this necessity the Constitution probably intends, that the legislature of the United States shall be the judges. Charged as they are with the preservation of the United States from both those evils, and superseding the powers of the several states in the prosecution of the measures they may find it expedient to adopt, it seems not unreasonable that this control over the writ of habeas corpus, which ought only to be exercised on extraordinary occasions, should rest with them. It is at any rate certain, that congress, which has authorized the courts and judges of the United States to issue writs of habeas corpus in cases within their jurisdiction, can alone suspend their power" - William Rawl, A View of the Constitution of the United States, Chapter 10, 1826
"It would seem, as the power is given to congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in cases of rebellion or invasion, that the right to judge, whether exigency had arisen, must exclusively belong to that body." - Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Book 3, Chapter XXXII, § 1336, 1833
"With such provisions in the constitution, expressed in language too clear to be misunderstood by any one, I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the president, in any emergency, or in any state of things, can authorize the suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, or the arrest of a citizen, except in aid of the judicial power. He certainly does not faithfully execute the laws, if he takes upon himself legislative power, by suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and the judicial power also, by arresting and imprisoning a person without due process of law." - Chief Justice Roger Taney, Ex Parte Merryman, United States Circuit Court, 1861
"There has been much discussion concerning the question whether the power to suspend the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus," is conferred by the Constitution on Congress, or on the President. The only judicial decisions which have been made upon this question have been adverse to the power of the President." - Justice Benjamin R. Curtis, Executive Power, 1862
It was done to stop an imminent threat to the Constitution intentionally timed by the Confederates to occur when Congress was out of session.
A percieved threat to the Constitution is no grounds to openly violate that same Constitution. Such an act is akin to "saving it from them by tearing it down yourself first."
(They only met for 3 months a year then)
Really? Cause in 1861 Congress was in session for over 4 months spread across the year. It would have been in session longer had The Lincoln called one in the period between March and July when he was starting his war. The 1861 year was short by comparison to earlier congresses largely because of The Lincoln's refusal to call a session when it waas needed. The 1860 Congress was in session from the beginning of the year till the end of June (6 months) plus all of December for a total of 7 months.
Confederate organized mobs in Maryland were burning railroad bridges in an attempt to isolate Washington from the rest of the North.
Actually most records indicate that they were trying to keep the massachussetts troops out of the city of Baltimore, where riots were breaking out due to the troop movements. Lincoln immediately called for an emergency session and when Congress
No he didn't. Congress was out from his inauguration on March 4th and did not return until July 4th. The habeas corpus suspension and war occured in between.
returned they fully approved and applauded his actions
The Constitution bans ex post facto laws. Consent to an unconstitutional habeas corpus suspension given after the fact is therefore unconstitutional itself.
As to this day the constitutionality of a president suspending the writ when congress is out of session is undecided
That is simply not so. Two previous court rulings by Marshall for the US Supreme Court and by Taney for the US Circuit Court say only the legislature may suspend it. The overwhelming evidence from the founding fathers themselves says only the legislature can suspend it. The opinions of two additional Justices, Story and Curtis, say only the legislature can suspend it. The statements of founding father and president Thomas Jefferson say only the legislature can suspend it. And while Justice Rehnquist may have said today that the court had not settled the issue, Justice Curtis said the exact opposite in 1862 when he wrote that the court had consistently held against the power that The Lincoln was asserting for himself.
Makeshift prisons? Please document that statement.
The most notable one was in Missouri prior to the Lawrence raid. Union command there rounded up the wives and children of confederate sympathizers in an unstable multi-story building. It collapsed under the weight killing several. A few days later the husbands of the disaster's victims rounded up a band of men and made their infamous retalatory raid on Lawrence, Kansas.
No civilians were hung.
That is simply not true. In one famous case a New Orleans civilian was hung for the simple "crime" of removing a union flag. Countless other civilians were executed by other means all over the south. My own ancestor was lined up in a pond with his neighbors and shot for simply refusing to reveal the locations of local confederate troops.