# Is there any legitimacy to the Sovereign Citizen argument?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 7, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097 "2017-05-07T22:25:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![SarahWitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@SarahWitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SarahWitch)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/212 "2017-11-26T03:16:33Z")

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> [@Moriarty](#):
>
> After all, their only real beef with the US concerned slavery.

If you want to write fiction, this isn’t the place for it. It was about one thing, and ONLY one thing: national sovereignty.  
That’s was the CSA states’ sole _legal_ basis for secession, and the federal government’s legal basis for\* invasion\*; that is a simple fact, and if you _deny_ this you are simply wrong.

Everything else is _irrelevant._

Accordingly, the South was correct in its assertion, while the federal government was 100%\* wrong\*. There was never a single nation-state called “The Union,” as Lincoln claimed.  
EVER.  
The Constitution was ratified by _13_ sovereign nation-states, not one; and they didn’t unite as a single nation-state, as revisionists claim.  
You can _deny_ history, but you can’t change what happened; it just makes you the worse.

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