LINCOLN'S PLAN FOR STARVING FREED SLAVES, "LET THEM ROOT HOG OR DIE". It comes from the idea that when pigs or hogs couldn’t be fed, they’d be turned out into the woods to fend for themselves. They could either root hog or die. But, it was politically popularized by Abraham Lincoln. In a meeting with the Confederate emissary Alexander Stephens in February, 1865 at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference, Lincoln was asked what his plans were for the freed slaves. Stephens’ interest in the freedmen, was in how Lincoln planned to provide for their well-being, particularly since the latter was responsible for their dire plight. The "Great Emancipator," replied: “Let them root hog or die.” And in the starving war-ravaged South, they did die. According to Professor Downs of Connecticut College, in his book Dying for Freedom, approximately 1 million black southerners, one out of four, died from 1862-1870 of war violence, disease, and starvation. #Confederate #Confederacy #CSA #Lincoln #slavery