Going From Are to Is

BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, folks would say: "the United Stats are"....After the Civil War, and ever since, we say "the United States is". The Civil War was fought to change "are" to "is". A collection of independent sovereign states coalesced into a United nation, with a strong central government, to which all Americans are loyal. Robert E. Lee, like everyone else before the Civil War, was loyal to his state first, and to the United States second. When his state left the union because of Abraham Lincoln's election and along with a dozen other states formed the Confederate States of America, they became first traitors to the U.S.A., then treasonous, then finally a foreign country, an enemy military power which attacked and prosecuted a war between two countries which cost nearly half a million American lives. There was no "civil war". there was a war between two adversarial, belligerent nations, one of which attacked the other, igniting a catastrophic war from which it can be argued the Untied States never fully recovered. Robert E. Lee, as well as many confederate military leaders, political leaders, and civilians, was a man of honor, a man of courage, a man of dignity. They were, however, treasonous traitors and foreign combatants of an enemy nation of the United States. Why should they be or ever have been honored on American monuments, honored by having American streets, military bases, schools and many other entities named after them? The fact that the confederat flag symbolized slavery and racism is true, but secondary to the fact that it was the flag of a belligerent foreign country which made war against the United States and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Why should it be, or ever have been, displayed on United States soil?