Between April 4 and April 17, the key event changing Virginia public
opinion was Lincoln's call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion (and
maybe the "_Pawnee_ Sunday" incident) rather than the firing on Sumter.
In the case of North Carolina, I suspect that they would have seceded
about the same time (late April), but conscious of their own sense of
history and destiny delayed until May 20 -- the anniversary of the
so-called Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of 1775 (if you want to
know about that one, contact me off-list -- it's NC history after all).

David Kiracofe
College of Charleston

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