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Show "MASON AND DIXON'S LINE" Popular Misapprehension as to Meaning Mean-ing of Term and Just What the Phrase Implied. Very incorrect is the general belief that Mason and Dixon's line, as originally orig-inally laid oft, divided the slave-holding states from the free states. On the contrary, It ran for one-third of its whole length between Maryland and Delaware, both of which were slave-holding states at the time. The line was run purely to settle a boundary bound-ary dispute between Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. . All the same, the actual Mason and Dixon's line was as much synonym for trouble and dissension in its day as was the figure of speech to which in after years it gave rise. And the phrase will hold bitter meaning to some until (in that looked-for day of charity to all men) shall be fulfilled Dr. John Wyeth's recent prophecy that "When the people of the South and the North get together they will forget there was ever a Mason and Dixon's line." Southern Woman's Magazine. |