You are really resorting to revisionism to use a source like Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, by Colonel Alexander K. McClure. Couldn't you find a reliable source?
But then of course if you did, you would have to post the truth, which is:
"A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States," Alexander Stephens , 1870, Philadelphia: National Publishing Co.:
"When asked by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stepehens at the 1865 Hampton Roads 'peace' conference what would become of the freedmen without property or education, Lincoln sarcastically recited the words to a popular minstrel song, 'root, hog or die.'"
So, the popular emancipator was talking not about the working class Southern farmers, but specifically the slave class that would be forced into extreme poverty and starvation if the Southern economy was destroyed.
Nice try yourself, Pea. The story as related gives the tale in context. You persist in quoting a single line. So you take your version and I'll go along with the complete story in context. I wouldn't expect you to accept it, since it doesn't meet with your approved view of the president. Now, of course, if there is another version giving the whole conversation other than the one I posted then by all means bring it out and we can compare the two.