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"The Confederacy was a rebellion by Democrats, the party of slavery.
These are statues of Democrats – the original Democrats, the honest 19th century Democrats who at least told you what they thought, and didn’t lie to their members with promises of a welfare state and a chicken in every pot like 20th century Democrats did – and it’s Democrats who are demanding that they be torn down.
Let’s let the Democrats sort it out amongst themselves.
Republicans were the anti-slavery party..."

Republicans anti-slavery?? Noooooo, surely you jest?
I'm pretty sure it was Democrats who fought for Big Government, Unions & equality and they were opposed by those nasty racist Lincoln Republicans, right?

Isn't that what they teach in school these days?

The reason why is instructive: While Lee was an opponent of slavery, he viewed the United States as a federation, not as a single nation. He believed his true debt of loyalty was to his country, which was Virginia… so he believed he had no choice. While northerners viewed the United States as a single nation, so rebels must be classified as traitors, most southerners viewed each state as a nation, and the United States as a voluntary association.

So when Lee was fighting Mexico, he didn't think he was fighting for his nation?

Lee's father was Federalist -- he didn't think the US was his country?

We can't get inside the heads of people back then, but it must have been more complicated than he says.

Madison and Monroe and Tyler and Polk must have had some sense that they were serving a united nation in the days before slavery became a major issue.

P.S. Lee wasn't an "opponent of slavery" in any real way. A letter to his wife saying that he hoped God would get rid of slavery when it had done its work isn't "opposition" to slavery.

Robert E. Lee would have felt like a traitor to Virginia if he had heeded the call from the United States to fight against his countrymen in Virginia.

And did he "feel" like a traitor for fighting against the country he'd sworn an oath of allegiance to?

If you want to be tolerant and sympathetic when it comes to Lee, fine, but you have to show the same tolerance and sympathy to other people and their difficult cases.