I think this gets it entirely backward. The treason/traitor angle is far less important than WHY the Confederacy went into rebellion and WHY the monuments were later erected. The values are the thing not the treason. https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1275160588386271232

The other day someone asked me if other countries have erected monuments to people who lost a civil war. The answer of course being: "yes, it's complicated." But I finished on this...

With the confederate statues it's a double whammy: erected specifically to terrorize the very people they went into rebellion to keep enslaved. The failed attempt at political secession is, like, incidental background noise in that story.