I don't see it as being as unfair as holding people to an agreement formed 3/4 of a century before by people long-dead who thought that they were forming a voluntary union (small "u") and had no way of foreseeing the problems that would arise in the future. Of course the seceding parties should take a responsible share of the debt incurred during the union. But let's not forget that the South had, (under the scheme of the iniquitous Alexander Hamilton to help his cronies enrich themselves at national expense - which was the direct cause of the whiskey rebellion), assumed a portion of debt of the northern states - so that they were up somewhat in the balance.
Nothing could be more unfair than forcing people to remain in a federation which they see as totally opposed to their best intestests and facilitating an uncompensated transfer of wealth from themselves to more favored members of the federation.
Our country today is made up of people equally divided between fundamentally opposed and incompatible views of what government should and should not do. Each wants to force its desired political structure on the other. In my view there can be no satisfactory compromise between such groups, unless the federal government were to be weakened very considerably. The solution to such problems is, as Switzerland approximates, avoid formation of large inhomogeneously populated national entities with rigid uniform systems of law. It would be far preferable to have many small homgeneously populated states, each with a political system and laws appropriate to its particular population.
"Can't you see how unfair that is?"
Your question arises from a very fundamental philosophical error. You can't understand why other people don't see the world exactly as you do. But the way that you see the world is quite particular to you, determined in ways which you cannot possibley understand by the sum total of your life's experiences and the various influences to which you were subjected in your formative years. You cannot expect people whose experiences have been quite different from yours to see the world exactly as you do - but you do seem to expect just that. And you think that the "truths" that hold in your particular worldview are absolute truths rather than "truths" particular to you.
I don't see it as being as unfair as holding people to an agreement formed 3/4 of a century before by people long-dead who thought that they were forming a voluntary union (small "u") and had no way of foreseeing the problems that would arise in the future.
The fly in the buttermilk is that the debt was extant in 1861. The feds had assumed the debts of Texas. the feds had paid hundreds of millions of dollars to move the indians out of Georgia and Florida.
It is right to just let those states walk on money spent on their behalf in living memory?
Which state picks up the tab? The one with the latest postmark on its secession documents?
It's nuts. It's absurd and unjust, just as President Lincoln said.
Walt