heck i cant even win on smarter than a fifth grader.

i do remember the hard tests of the  60's

as far as the NEA union, it the policymakers not the actual teachers that are doing the dumb down.  

at least it provides job security as the new people don't know Jack

I'm confused.

1861-1865 was the War for Southern Independence, the War between the States or the Civil War ?

"Civil War" is how I studied it, and mind you, I studied it in Fairfax Co., Va., 1968-1973 ...  

PS Lisbon is in Portugal...  

Yes, I visited Fort Sumter (without the "p"  ) I believe I know, after all these years, I believe I remember quite a bit of American History.

I have toured 46 of the 48 Continental States, I believe I have missed only Maine and N.Dakota (we were in S.Dakota's Black Hills and asked a local tourist guide what there was to see in N.Dakota, she shrugged and replied "nothing, really, just a lot of ranches and a lot of snow in the winter" so my parents decided to head west to Yellowstone Ntn'l Park).

When I asked about the "Civil" War, it's because that's how you and I (and Lupo, I'm sure, just to name one) studied that conflict in school.
Revisionists have decided to give that conflict a different name, but any schoolbook printed in the 1970's or earlier will use that very expression.
Mind you, I ain't casting no stone, Europe is rife with Revisionists...  

LA -

There was a book written in the early 1960s that I read in college called, "If the South Had Won the Civil War".

Obviously hypothetical, but it had the following salient points:

1.  Westward expansion halted.  Arizona, New Mexico, California and Nevada were all part of Mexico.  Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington were all part of Canada.  Alaska remained part of Russia.

2.  CSA does away with slavery about 1890, as with the Industrial Revolution mechanizing agriculture, slaves were actually too expensive to keep, and the CSA's agricultural economy no longer needed them.

3.  Confederate States of American (CSA) and USA were allies in WW I against the Germans.  Relations between CSA and USA began warming now.

4.  Great Depression was really devastating, particularly in the CSA.

5.  CSA and USA were again allies in WW II.  Relations between USA and CSA really warmed up, and the two began cooperating on many domestic and foreign policy fronts.

6.  The book ended when it was written, again in the early 1960s, at the peak of the Cold War.  Russia owned Alaska, and Russian missiles were pointed at both USA and CSA, as well as at the major cities in Mexican California.

7.  At the end of the book, CSA and USA were engaged in negotiations to re-unite to combat the Soviet Union, which was even more of a super power since USA was a much smaller country without the West and the territory in the CSA.

Very interesting reading - sure, it's all speculation, but not too far off what may well have happened.  Thankfully, we'll never know, will we?