Steering Column Help

I'm going from power to manual in my 68 Dart. I have floor shift and dash ignition. I have the manual gear in and in tearing apart the manual column (its a column shift/ign) I notice that the shaft is two pieces that slide. Is the power column/shaft also two pieces? Why not just slide it down?
Thanks,
Craig
Great site, new member.

If your column shaft slides, that means that your shear pins have broken. The shear pins are part of the collapsible portion of the whole column. Wait til they slide up on you and it pulls the coupler apart.......

I know that first hand.....talk about scary.