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After Fort Sumter, the (Northern) President unconstitutionally established a blockade of Southern ports on his own motion.

Wrong. The question of the legality of the blockade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1863 in what are commonly called the "Prize Cases". The Supreme Court decided that the blockade was a legal extension of the President's powers to supress rebellion.

That is my major complaint with Adams' book. It if very poorly researched and full of inaccuracies such as these. The Civil War is one of the most thoroughly documented wars of the 19th century. There are warehouses full of government documents before, during, and after the war for both North and south. Every major figure in the war except Lincoln wrote memoirs. Every political leader of both the North and the south left masses of written documentation on their thoughts and positions both before the war and after. And yet Adams uses none of this. He quotes endlessly from newspaper editorials and nothing from the figures who actually made the history. All in all it is a very poorly researched work and little more than page after page of his own opinions.

BTW, I have a used copy of the book I am willing to sell cheap.

I might add to Non-Sequitur's post #28 that even Karl Marx exchanged a series of letters with Lincoln wherein Marx recognized that slavery was the fundamental reason that Lincoln prosecuted the war, and commended Lincoln for his efforts to end what amounted to an island of feudalism within a sea of industrialism. (But then went on to urge the President to also abolish "wage slavery"). If there is one thing good to be said about Marx, it is that he always researched well that which he wrote about.

After Fort Sumter, the (Northern) President unconstitutionally established a blockade of Southern ports on his own motion

"That is my major complaint with Adams' book. It if very poorly researched and full of inaccuracies such as these"

Well, you major complaint is not founded on fact. That is not a quote from the author of the book.