When Edgartown residents voted on secession 51 years ago, they were 100 to one against it.

They even voted $1,000 to stop it.

They were on the other side of the stick then. Pending in the General Court at the time was a bill which would have allowed Chappaquiddick to secede from Edgartown and become an independent municipality.

Monday, the secessionist movement gets its first real test of popular support on the Islands.

Or will it be the popular support of redistricting that is on trial?

No one seems certain.

Rep. Terrence P. McCarthy, this week: “A vote for secession is a vote against the redistricting plan.”

From the governor’s office of New Hampshire, unofficially: “Are you serious about secession, or are you angry about the reapportionment?”