Absolutely. A "your debts to the south are invalid; no amount of lobbying will change that; congress and the president cannot honor them. But also this is a special case; this is not the United States defaulting on debts generally, which we *cannot* do now for the same reasons"

Which was a smart thing to do, because those debts were ... not small. And reassuring creditors that the North was good for it, but the South was not, was a good call.