In 1864, a pamphlet entitled “Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro” began to circulate on the streets of New York. The title certainly would have given New Yorkers pause. No one had ever seen the word “miscegenation” before. In fact, the pamphlet’s anonymous author invented it, giving the reason that “amalgamation”—then the most common term used to describe “race mixing”—was a “poor word, since it properly refers to the union of metals with quicksilver.” The term “miscegenation”—from the Latin miscere (to mix) and genus (race)—had only one definition.
Besides introducing a new word into the English language, the pamphleteer was also responsible for what appeared to be one of the most fearless documents in the archive of nineteenth century abolitionist writing. Among many other claims and political recommendations, the pamphlet notes that, “the miscegenetic or mixed races are much superior, mentally, physically, and morally, to those pure or unmixed;” that “a continuance of progress can only be obtained through a judicious crossing of diverse elements;” that “the Caucasian, or white race… has never yet developed a religious faith on its own;” that “the true ideal man can only be reached by blending the type man and woman of all the races of the earth;” that “the most beautiful girl in form, feature, and every attribute of feminine loveliness [the pamphleteer] ever saw, was a mulatto.” Most provocatively, the writer claimed that “the Southern beauty… proclaims by every massive ornament in her shining hair, and by every yellow shade in the wavy folds of her dress, ‘I love the black man.’”
At the time, Miscegenation was radical. Even among the most radical abolitionists of the day, interracial marriage was tolerated, but rarely explicitly encouraged. (Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner and prominent abolitionist Wendell Phillips were exceptions.) Eurocentric racial hierarchies were often deeply ingrained in their thinking.
Throughout Miscegenation, the author is at pains to exalt Black Americans as exemplars of “the beau idéal of true manhood.” Though it is full of pseudoscience and faulty reasoning (lots of talk of skull measuring and the effect of temperature on skin color), its intentions seem noble. One wonders how the racial politics of the Reconstruction would have played out had more people thought like the pamphleteer.
Around Christmas of 1863, before Miscegenation’s official publication, the pamphleteer sent his work out to a host of prominent abolitionists, many of whom expressed, through letters sent to the publisher, an admiration, as the historian Sidney Kaplan writes in his definitive account, “tempered with cautious enthusiasm both for the substance of the pamphlet and for the timeliness of its publication.” While it generally met with encouragement, many of the pamphlet’s readers urged caution, seemingly worried that the nation might not be ready for such dramatic measures. They might have been especially concerned that the pamphlet not be aligned too closely with the push for Lincoln’s reelection, especially because it recommended that the Republican Party include miscegenation as a plank in its platform. Lincoln himself was sent a copy, but he did not respond.