To break asunder. Used in a literal sense by Scoresby, 1817. N.E.D.
1860. I do not mean to say that I believe our Government is going to be dissolved, and the Union disrupted, within a year.—Mr. Foster of Conn., U.S. Senate, Jan. 4: Cong. Globe, p. 326.
1861. That ‘great principle’ [of non-intervention] disrupted the Democratic party; it has now disrupted the Union.—Mr. Wigfall of Texas in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 31: O. J. Victor, ‘The History … of the Southern Rebellion,’ i. 323.
