Understanding the Paradoxical Trinity and It Application to the Civil War

QUESTION: The magnet of "the Government" from Clausewitz's paradoxical trinity is the concept most important for understanding the causes of the Civil War conflict.

I. Introduction:

a. Growing tensions between the states of the union including politics, economics, moral

and ethical issues had by early 1860 grown to incite hatred and violence in the north and south.

b. Thesis: The "Government" defined the differences between the northern and southern states economic and political views and policy and served as a major driving force in the conduct of the civil war. The ultimate questions concerned economic prosperity and who had the right to determine how the individual states governed themselves.

II. Southern dependence on slavery and the distrust of the national government fueled aggression.

a. By 1860 the south had staked its economic success of trade which was supported heavily by dependence on slave labor.

b. Southern tendency to question authority and direction from the central US government led the southern states to seek separation from the union in order to protect its cultural foundation.

III. Northern political views of slavery and its economic policy supported the central government's desire to direct public policy served to fuel southern aggression.

a. National economic policy supported heavily by tariffs in place since the 1820's and continued in the 1860's angered and drove southern desire to seek separation and establishment of independent government supportive to southern economic views.

b. The candidacy of Abraham Lincoln for President helped to strengthen northern views toward