Hi Penny, sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

My original question was "Is the United States a stronger nation TODAY for having fought and the CSA having lost the Civil War?"

That question was conditional only upon the CW (or WBTS) having happened and the CSA having lost - just as both actually occurred and as the question stated. Hence, the question as asked was not a fairly open question as you thought it was. It was, in my opinion, a closed, well defined question.

Your response seemed to me to be conditional upon the CW (or WBTS) not having happened and when you said "had the WBTS not occurred (with the North winning as well...), I got lost trying to figure out how the North could win when the WBTS didn't occur??

Anyway, no reason to go further on this one. I think others have nearly exhausted all possible answers, and I was probably just having a senior moment when I read your response, or I would have understood what you meant.

At any rate, thank you for the warm greeting and, yes, things are going quite well (without even having to ask - "what things were you asking about?")

I will add as an aside - I do wonder how the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1963 would have been handled had the CSA won the WBTS, and maintained its pre-WBTS Constitution with postwar Amendments assumed to be similar to the Amendments approved by the USA over the interim years for its Constitution?

I think for starters on this hypothetical question, it can also be assumed that none of the Federal defense installations throughout the South would be there today unless they were installed through a mutual defense treaty in which case, I wonder what the CSA's end of the mutuality would have been? (Boy, this one's straight out of the twilight zone; Wouldn't surprise me at all if no one responded)

Jamie, feel free to strike this one. It just sort of spewed out in a stream of unconcious thought.