Would you get off the laughable rant. Slavery is evil to moral men everywhere, not just to "neo-marxists."
If the states actually seceded they had no legal rights, as they abandoned the basis of legality, the Union Constituion. The secessionists can claim no legal basis to complain about anything the north did.
If the states didn't legally secede, then the Union had a right to supress the unconstitutional governments.
Either way you look at it, the secessionists lose the argument.
The Union case was very strong in light of the way the south chose to secede. A state may have the right to secede but not unilaterally. It should have been done with the approval of all affected parties and I believe that a strong case could be made that the Constitution would support that.
It is important to remember that in 1860 Slavery was not illegal and state right of secssion was the more well established legal principle.
Secession was never an established legal principle since it had never been tried before and had never been taken before the courts. The closest was probably during the nullification crisis and the president of the time, Andrew Jackson, made it clear how he felt on the subject.
I think it is very informative that Nothern authorities refused to allow Jefferson Davis to defend himself based upon the theory of the sovereign State's right to secede after the war. If Davis had been given his day in court before a reasonably impartial magistrate I think he might have won.
Davis never had his day in court because Chief Justice Chase made it clear that because of the adoption of the 14th Amendment, he believed that a trial and conviction would be a violation of Davis' Constitutional protections under the 5th Amendment. The government would have gone ahead with the trial given the opportunity and they would have won. The impartial jury you say would have convicted Davis would have been impossible to find so the government would no doubt have found one that would have supported their views.
Is Lincoln's repeated infringement of Constutional liberties (suspension of habeus corpus, summary imprisonment of political critics, supression of critical press outlets, the ordering of attacks against unarmed civilian populations) justified by by the eradication of the evil of Slavery?
You could just as easily ask if the Davis' repeated infringement of constitutional liberties in all the areas you mentioned, and more, were justified by his desire to form his own country? I think that it is telling that upon assuming office the president was not required to swear to preserve, protect, and defend the constitutiton. And throughout his term Davis seems to have treated the constitution as something to be followed if convenient. What future was there for a country founded in tyranny with a contempt for the law?
...the peaceful alternatives such as compensated emmancipation had not even been attempted before the onset of the War.
The south never gave President Lincoln a chance to propose any such alternatives. They began their rebellion literally the day after the election. But there is also a more basic question of whether compensated emancipation would have worked. It would have required the cooperation of the slave owners themselves and there is simply no evidence at all that they had any interest in ending the institution. Without there buy in the whole idea of compensated emancipation was dead on arrival.
The progessivist, neo-marxist fog is starting to disapate around Lincoln's wartime conduct and it is not a pretty picture.
And yet the neo-marxist fog around the confederate leadership remains. Go figure.