I'll ignore your silly straw man at the end, since that's not at all what I'm doing.  It's a common tactic some people use in discussions like this, pretending like it's "defending" when it's really pointing out hypocrisy.

England quickly forgave the US and has been a staunch ally of the US ever since.  You'll even find from statues of some of our founders there.  Plus, the southern states ARE still part of the US.  They're not some distant enemy where we have no concern for their people and their history.  Just because these states seceded for a few years doesn't mean we should pretend they aren't now and never were part of the US prior to that.  There's still a lot of Americans who consider that an important part of American history, and their family history as Americans.