Questions About John Brown

[Eva Elisabeth]

It seems there is a misquotation and Lincoln referred to the white southerners, not the freedmen.

I looked for the origin of the quote (I know Capenter has it in his "Six Months", he wasn't at Hampton Roads however.) I found this more contemporary "version" in M. Burlingame's "A Life", plus footnote, and this sounds much more like Lincoln to me:

"If slavery were abolished, Stephens asked: 'what are we to do? I know that negroes will not work, unless forced to it, and I tell you that we shall all starve together.' The question reminded Lincoln of an Illinois farmer who offered his neighbor advice on how to feed hogs: 'plant plenty of potatoes, and when they are mature, without either digging or housing them, turn the hogs in the field and let them get their own food as they want it.' When the neighbor asked, 'how will they do when the winter comes and the ground is hard frozen?' the farmer replied: 'let 'em root.' Southern whites, Lincoln said, 'can go to work like honest people or starve.'"199

Footnote:
"199 Washington correspondence, 22 February, by Van [D. W. Bartlett], Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, 25 February 1865. Campbell and Stephens gave versions of this story that made Lincoln’s remarks apply to Southern freedmen. The more contemporary account makes it apply to whites. The latter version seems more plausible, given Lincoln’s well-known attitude toward southern whites’ unwillingness to work and his oft-expressed concern for the well being of freed slaves."