A State wishing to secede should first make DAMN sure that an overwhelming super-majority of its citizens want such a course of action, then just announce it as a foregone conclusion and await the fallout.
There is no official procedure for secession so new ground would be broken with each vote and declaration. It would be a wild ride!
Of course, the whole thing might fall apart when Washington sends the bill for that State’s share of the national debt, due and payable immediately.
February 4, 1861 - Delegates are elected to the Virginia Convention, to convene in Richmond, to consider the constitutional crisis triggered by the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president and the secession of Deep South states.
February 13, 1861 - The Virginia Convention convenes in the Mechanics Institute at the foot of Capitol Hill in Richmond.
April 4, 1861 - A motion for secession is defeated, 45 to 90, in the Virginia Convention meeting in Richmond.
April 8, 1861 - After the General Assembly adjourns, the Virginia Convention moves its deliberations from the Mechanics Institute to the Capitol in Richmond.
April 15, 1861 - A three-man delegation sent by the Virginia Convention sitting in Richmond meets with Abraham Lincoln at the White House. It is the same day his proclamation calling for volunteers to put down the Confederate rebellion is published in newspapers.
April 16, 1861 - The Virginia Convention meeting in Richmond goes into secret session so that its deeply divided delegates may speak more frankly. A proposal by Unionist delegate Robert Eden Scott is defeated 64 to 77. It offered to give voters a referendum to choose between immediate secession and consultation with the other slave states of the Upper South.
April 17, 1861 - Delegates at the Virginia Convention in Richmond pass an Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 88 to 55. Thirty-two of the "no" votes come from trans-Allegheny delegates, who are more firmly Unionist than representatives from other parts of the state.
April 27, 1861 - Virginia offers to join the Confederate States of America and make Richmond its capital.
May 1, 1861 - The Virginia Convention, meeting in Richmond, adjourns, completing its substantive work. There will be a so-called Adjourned Session (June 12 through July 1) and a Second Adjourned Session (November 13 through December 6), but they do little work of note.
May 23, 1861 - The Ordinance of Secession is approved by Virginia voters by a vote of 125,950 to 20,373, with many western Virginia votes being discarded from the tally.