united-states
Confederate state debts
<p>Confederate state debts, if interest was imputed, would be an enormous amount by  now. Why are they not recognized as legitimate? If the current US government collapsed and reformed, would the prior debts be discharged? What about state and municipal debts in the same situation?</p>
<p>Even if the political entities are dissolved, are the private individuals and their estates subject to liability for causing these damages,  especially if they made fraudulent statements indicating the debt would be repaid?</p>

<h2>The debts of the Confederate States of America disappeared with the CSA</h2>
<p>Basically, if you lend money to someone, and that person vanishes, you lose your money.</p>
<p>If the USA were to cease to exist as a political entity then the debts of the USA (bonds, currency etc.) would also cease to exist. Or, more accurately, there would be no one remaining who was responsible for or able to pay those debts. Whether any successor state(s) would honour them and to what extent would be a matter for negotiation between them and the USA’s creditors.</p>
<p>For the CSA, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" rel="nofollow noreferrer">14th amendment </a> while most famous as the equal protection amendment also says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, if anyone was going to honour the debts of the CSA, it wasn’t going to be the USA. In the end, no one did and the creditors lost their money.</p>
<p>Now, the debts of the individual states and citizens were not absolved because those entities continued their existence.</p>
