[Vicomte13]

The Confederate discontinuity argument is interesting, but it doesn't work for the states.
Decisions of the state courts before, during and after the War Between the States are all binding precedent without distinction. By contrast, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the CSA (assuming there was such an entity) have no legal force, although I suppose they could be cited as "persusasive authority".

The States did not cease to exist. Their citizens entered into a state of rebellion, the rebellion was put down, the state continued to be a state in unbroken continuity, at least legally speaking.

[Steve_Seattle]

"The States did not cease to exist. Their citizens entered into a state of rebellion, the rebellion was put down, the state continued to be a state in unbroken continuity, at least legally speaking."

That's kind of what I thought (post #58), but I wasn't sure so I left myself a little wiggle-room. But in another post, XRdsRev suggests that the history of these specific documents is known, and that they can be traced to a particular individual. If that is true - and this article does not say anything about it - the state's case would be stronger. I had had the impression from the story that no one really knew where the documents came from or how they were obtained.