secessionist, n. (and a.)
(sɪˈsɛʃənɪst)
[f. secession + -ist.]
One who favours secession; one who joins in a secession. a. spec. in U.S. Hist. One in favour of the attempt of the Southern States to withdraw from the Union.
| 1860 Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 3), Secessionists, the party in the South which would dissolve the Union, or go out of it immediately, without the coöperation of other States. Another party, calling themselves ‘coöperationists’, would only dissolve it when other States had joined them. 1861 Lowell E Pluribus Unum Pr. Wks. 1890 V. 52 The list of grievances put forward by the secessionists is a sham and a pretence. 1892 Nation (N.Y.) 14 July 32/2 The secessionists made war, not only on the Union, but on the progress of the age. |
b. gen.
| 1881 G. J. Holyoake in Daily News 26 Oct. 6/4 The Irish Secessionists. 1901 Daily Chron. 1 July 3/5 Their [i.e. Austrian painters] work suggests that as Secessionists, they have felt the necessity of doing something as no one has done it before. 1902 Scotsman 3 Jan. 6/2 Other ‘secessionists’ [‘blackleg’ workmen] managed to reach their homes safely, but only under strong police escort. |
c. attrib. and adj.
| 1861 Morn. Chron. 3 Aug., The plough lying abandoned, as it was left by the secessionist owner. 1894 Mag. of Art XVII. 379 Salon of the Champ de Mars..the secessionist Salon. 1898 M{supc}Carthy Gladstone's Life 239 Disraeli accepted the support of the secessionist Liberals. 1954 B. & R. North tr. M. Duverger's Pol. Parties ii. i. 294 If a party is clearly in a minority in the country as a whole but in a majority in certain districts its attitude becomes autonomist or even secessionist. 1962 Daily Tel. 9 Feb. 19/1 Mr. Gizenga, arrested and accused of ‘secessionist activities’. 1978 Detroit Free Press 2 Apr. 16c/3, I learned of the secessionist movement in the Upper Peninsula. |