Removing Confederate Generals portraits?

[Linda Anderson]

(12-20-2013 08:53 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Being a slaveholder didn't make Lee different from others who did, but how he treated them was light years ahead of his contemporaries. He educated them and freed them on his own. When asked what would happen to the slaves after emancipation, Lincoln's words were "Root hog or die". Quite a contrast, wouldn't you say?

"Root, hog, or die" is an interesting expression, Joe, so I looked it up. This is from Wikipedia.

"'Root, hog, or die' is a common American catch-phrase dating from well before 1834.[1] Coming from the early colonial practice of turning pigs loose in the woods to fend for themselves, the term is an idiomatic expression for self-reliance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_hog,_or_die

Lincoln recounted to Francis Carpenter that at the Hampton Roads Conference on Feb. 3, 1865 "Mr. Hunter said, substantially,... if the South should consent to peace on the basis of the Emancipation Proclamation, [the freed slaves] would precipitate not only themselves but the entire southern society into irremediable ruin. No work would be done, nothing would be cultivated, and both black and whites would starve."

So Lincoln was talking about both Southern blacks and whites.

http://books.google.com/books?id=L1FyFWc...ln&f=false