secession, in art

secession, in art, any of several associations of progressive artists, especially those in Munich, Berlin, and Vienna, who withdrew from the established academic societies or exhibitions. The artists of Munich formed a secession in 1892 that spread to other German cities. The Berlin Secession split away from the Verein Berliner Künstler in 1892; in 1899 it held its first exhibition in its own building. The group was led by Max Liebermann and included Lovis Corinth, Hans van Marées, and Franz von Stuck. When, in 1910, young artists of the Brücke group were excluded from the Berlin Secession exhibition, Max Pechstein led the rejected painters and organized the New Secession group. The Vienna Secession was organized in 1897 by 19 leading Austrian artists. Their leader was Gustav Klimt, whose decorative, exotic murals exemplify Secessionstil, the Viennese version of art nouveau. The Photo-Secession group was an American association of modern photographers founded in 1902 by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen in New York City in reaction against pictorial photography.

secession, in political science

secession, in political science, formal withdrawal from an association by a group discontented with the actions or decisions of that association. The term is generally used to refer to withdrawal from a political entity; such withdrawal usually occurs when a territory or state believes itself justified in establishing its independence from the political entity of which it was a part. By doing so it assumes sovereignty sovereignty, supreme authority in a political community. The concept of sovereignty has had a long history of development, and it may be said that every political theorist since Plato has dealt with the notion in some manner, although not always explicitly.
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The U.S. Civil War

Perhaps the best-known example of a secession taking place within the borders of a formerly unified nation was the withdrawal (1860–61) of the 11 Southern states from the United States to form the Confederacy Confederacy, name commonly given to the Confederate States of America (1861–65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union.
..... Click the link for more information. . This action, which led to the Civil War Civil War, in U.S. history, conflict (1861–65) between the Northern states (the Union) and the Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy .
..... Click the link for more information. , brought to a head a constitutional question that had been an issue in the United States since the formation of the union. It was the principal point in the controversy over states' rights states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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The secessionists argued that the union created by the Constitution was only a compact of sovereign states and that power given to the federal government was only partial and limited, not paramount over the states, and effective only in the specific fields assigned it. The states, being sovereign, had the legal right to withdraw from the voluntary union. The opponents of the right of secession believed that the Constitution created a sovereign and inviolable union and that withdrawal from that union was impossible. Prior to the Civil War secessionist sentiments were evidenced in both the North (see Hartford Convention Hartford Convention, Dec. 15, 1814–Jan. 4, 1815, meeting to consider the problems of New England in the War of 1812 ; held at Hartford, Conn. Prior to the war, New England Federalists (see Federalist party ) had opposed the Embargo Act of 1807 and other
..... Click the link for more information. ) and South, but as the North grew more powerful, talk of secession became more common in the South.

The nullification nullification, in U.S. history, a doctrine expounded by the advocates of extreme states' rights . It held that states have the right to declare null and void any federal law that they deem unconstitutional.
..... Click the link for more information. movement, which held that any state could declare null and void any federal law that infringed upon its rights, was an attempt to eradicate the need for secession by giving the states complete sovereignty. Measures such as the Missouri Compromise Missouri Compromise, 1820–21, measures passed by the U.S. Congress to end the first of a series of crises concerning the extension of slavery.
..... Click the link for more information. and the Compromise of 1850 Compromise of 1850. The annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican War (1848) aggravated the hostility between North and South concerning the question of the extension of
..... Click the link for more information. were merely delays in resolving whether the states or the federal government was to possess sovereignty. Desiring to maintain the slave system and threatened by the North socially and economically, the South finally seceded from the Union soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln Lincoln, Abraham (lĭng`kən), 1809–65, 16th President of the United States (1861–65).
..... Click the link for more information. . The defeat of the Confederacy in the bloody war that followed settled the constitutional controversy permanently.

Other Historical Examples of Secession

An early example of secession is that of northern Israelite tribes from the larger Davidian kingdom after the death of Solomon (933 B.C.). Venezuela and Ecuador were created in 1830 when they seceded from Gran Colombia. Military action by Finnish nationalists enabled Finland to secede from a weakened Russia after 1917. In the 1960s the attempts of Katanga Katanga (kätăng`gə, kə–), formerly Shaba
..... Click the link for more information. to secede from the newly independent Congo Congo, Democratic Republic of the, formerly Zaïre (zī`ēr, zäēr`), republic (2005 est. pop.
..... Click the link for more information. and of Biafra Biafra, Republic of, secessionist state of W Africa, in existence from May 30, 1967, to Jan. 15, 1970. At the outset Biafra comprised, roughly, the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers states of the Federation of Nigeria , where the Igbo people predominated.
..... Click the link for more information. to break away from Nigeria Nigeria (nījĭr`ēə), officially Federal Republic of Nigeria, republic (2006 provisional pop.
..... Click the link for more information. were both crushed in long and bloody civil wars. By contrast, the secession (1971) of Bangladesh Bangladesh (bäng-lädĕsh`, băng–)
..... Click the link for more information. (formerly East Pakistan) from the state of Pakistan was accomplished successfully with the help of India, the Baltic states regained independence from the USSR immediately before its dissolution, and Eritrea Eritrea (ĕrĭtrē`ə), officially State of Eritrea, republic (2005 est. pop. 4,562,000), c.
..... Click the link for more information. seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 after the overthrow of the latter nation's government.

Bibliography

See J. T. Carpenter, The South as a Conscious Minority (1930); D. M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (1942); K. M. Stampp, And the War Came (1950); D. L. Dumond, The Secession Movement, 1860–1861 (1931, repr. 1963); U. B. Phillips, The Course of the South to Secession (1939, repr. 1964); L. C. Buchheit, Secession (1978); G. Craven, Secession (1986); J. A. Rawley, Secession (1989).

secession

(1860–61) Withdrawal of 11 Southern states from the U.S. The precipitating event was the election of Abraham Lincoln as president (1860). Since the Republican Party strongly opposed slavery and its extension into the new territories, most slaveholding states had vowed to secede if the Republican candidate won. Secession had been proclaimed by states'-rights advocates as a corollary to the compact that united the states, permitting them to withdraw as easily as they had joined. Earlier threats of secession were made at the Hartford Convention (1814), in the nullification crisis (1832), and in the 1850s before the Missouri Compromise. Secession was first approved by South Carolina (1860); six other states followed in the period before Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861. After Lincoln resisted the South's attack on Fort Sumter, four other slaveholding states voted to secede, joining the newly formed Confederate States of America.