Mixed Race Studies

What Miscegenation is! And What We are to Expect Now That Mr. Lincoln is Re-elected

Waller & Willets, Publishers, New York
c. 1865
8 pages
Source: Harvard University via The Hathi Trust Digital Library

L. Seaman, LL. D.

“What, is Miscegenation?” is an oft repeated inquiry. A word not recognized by Webster, Johnson, or Worcester, and yet in general use. The following definition is according to the popular acceptation of the term:

Miscegenation, noun—The act of mixing or state of being mixed; a mass or compound of different ingredients; in logic, thought of in relation to an actual existence; opposed to abstract.

Miscegenate, verb transitive—Literally, to unite and blend as one common brotherhood different races; to blend promiscuously; to coalesce.

It is unnecessary for us to enter into a lengthy definition of the word as the artist who engraved our frontispiece portrays that which our pen fails to accomplish. Our illustration represents an “intelligent gentleman of color” affectionately saluting a pretty white girl of sixteen, with auburn hair and light complexion; the different shades of complexion of the two contrasting beautifully and lending  enchantment to the scene. The thick tufts of wool of the one lends beauty to the long, waving auburn hair of the other, and the sweet, delicate little Roman nose of the one does not detract from the beauty of the broad, flat nose, with expanded nostrils of the other—while the intellectual, bold and majestic forehead of the one forms an unique, though beautiful contrast to the round, flat head, resembling a huge gutter mop, of the other. Contrast is the order of the day: a desire for sameness was an hallucination of the ancients, but we of the Nineteenth Century are going to bring about a new order of things…

…Actual Miscegenationists were first discovered in the South, but the atrocious crime was not popular although it was committed to a considerable extent, and men have been known to sell their own children into slavery, simply because of the supposed attaintment of the offspring from its mother. But such beasts are only to be found in the South. Here in the North, we have a finer sense of the beautiful. Dark blood, in the estimation ot the Northmen, instead of attainting, purifies. A man whose veins are coursed by a certain amount of dark blood, and whose skin is correspondingly dark, is believed to be a superior being.

Many of our best orators have been advocating this mixture for some time. Wendel Phillips can’t see why a negro is not the equal of a white man, and, in many instances, why he has not proved himself superior. When coalescesion takes place he believes that the excellent properties of Sambo’s component parts are intensified and the sluggish material of the white man purified and renovated…

Read the entire pamphlet here.