— A state committee mulling a move for three Confederate monuments away from the State Capitol will hold a public hearing Wednesday afternoon in downtown Raleigh.

The state Historical Commission's Confederate Monuments Committee has set aside two hours for comment, with a third hour optional if there's enough interest. Participants will be asked to speak for a minute or less on a proposal from Gov. Roy Cooper to move the monuments from the Capitol grounds to the Bentonville Battlefield historic site in Johnston County.

More than 4,000 comments have already been logged online through a portal managed by the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The department didn't have a tally Tuesday of pro versus con comments.

Many people wrote in that they're descended from Confederate veterans and the monuments should stay where they are. A number of people wrote that, if Confederate monuments are moved, statues of Martin Luther King Jr. should be moved as well.

Others used King's name in arguing that the monuments should be relocated.

The public hearing is slated to begin at 1:30 p.m. in the first-floor auditorium of the state Library Building, at 109 E. Jones St. Registration will begin at 12:30 p.m., and speakers will be asked to speak in the order they sign up.

Hearing organizers have asked speakers to limit their comments to the monuments in Capitol Square and not to discuss monuments in other locations, including the "Silent Sam" monument on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus that has sparked protests. The commission has also said applause and other outbursts won't be tolerated during the hearing, with people subject to expulsion after a second violation.

Cooperput this issue before the Historical Commission last year when he recommended the move for the 1895 Confederate Monument, The Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument and The North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Monument. All three sit outside the old Capitol building, which houses the Governor's Office. A state law passed in 2015 to protect Confederate monuments and other "objects of remembrance" restricts what the state can do, even with consent from the commission.

The commission last fall decided to delay any decisions on the monuments until April and set up the study committee to gather more input on the issue.