...fore in a speech at the Charleston Hotel had said, I will tell your governor what will put Virginia in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock. Strike a blow! (Rhodes, United States , Vol. III, p. 349.) The blow was to be in reply to what was accepted as the first overt effort at the national coercion of a sovereign State—the attempted relief of Sumter. That attempt&mda...