That's the thing, we didn't punish the confederates. Sure, we got the "government", but not the planter class that instigated the war in the first place. Then Lincoln got shot and Johnson, their butt boy, let them off the hook. They got to keep their land, and more importantly, their political power, all at the cost of enfranchising formerly enslaved people. Then they proceeded to morph their classical slavery into modern slavery.

Every time an "elite" committed high treason in American history, they just get to walk, and all the working class people that get caught in the mayhem get fucked.

It's happening even now. Maxwell is the only person imprisoned for the largest child sex trafficking coverup in world history.