The word miscegenation entered the English language during the 1864 American presidential campaign.  The Irish immigrant and Democrat‚ D.G. Croly and his coauthor‚ George Wakeman‚ coined the term in a sensational 1863 pamphlet titled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races‚ Applied to the American White Man and Negro. Croly and Wakeman combined the Latin words miscere (‘to mix’) and genus (‘race’) in attempting to replace the older term amalgamation.  Miscegenation’s scientific ring gave it advantages‚ as did its success in conjuring up the ‘mongrelization’ of the United States as a political issue.  By racist Democratic reckoning‚ Republican policies in 1864 threatened literally to establish a ‘miscegen’ nation.  But Croly and Wakeman did not claim credit for their verbal creativity.  They instead anonymously wrote the pamphlet as an elaborate hoax‚ posing as pro–Republican abolitionists who saw mixing of the races as a ‘rich blending of blood’.  Croly then sent copies to well–known antislavery leaders.  He hoped to get their endorsements for theories that could then be used to embarrass the Republicans in the coming elections.

—David R. Roediger