The Miscegenation Hoax

Though the Civil War was ravaging the countryside, and union soldiers were fighting and falling in what would become the bloodiest of all American wars, the political rivalry between democrats and republicans was not curtailed. In fact, the impending election in 1864 would heighten tensions, and the methods that would be utilize to besmirch and defame the opposing party, in some respects, were unorthodox. President Lincoln was campaigning for his second term and his democratic opposition were seeking to discredit him by any means possible. One of the primary methods utilized was to attack his supposed love for the recently freed African-Americans. The “great emancipator” was condemned and criticized by many for emancipating the slaves, and not supporting a regime that promoted a racial hierarchy and white supremacy. The war that had begun in order to save the Union had been transformed into a war for African American liberty, and to many, that was unacceptable. The democratic opposition worried that this new caste of Freedmen would become a powerful force, one that could potentially alter the entire social structure of American society. Moreover, the opponents to emancipation and black equality were also concerned with the sanctity and purity of white blood and many feared that another term under Lincoln would mean that “compulsory marriage of white and black had finally become the main plan in the republican platform.” To that end, two New York City Democrats devised a plan which they believed would reveal that the “mongrelization” of America, or the amalgamation of races, was indeed the final goal of the Republican Party. The “miscegenation hoax,” as it came to be known, was their plan to disenfranchise republican voters in the coming 1864 election.
The war was the primary focus of the election of 1864, but race and the future of race relations certainly remained an inflammatory issue throughout both parties’ campaigns. In December of 1863, it was characterized in a decidedly new way that would become a topic of heated discussion and debate throughout the coming election year. A seventy-two page pamphlet entitled “Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro” was published and distributed among selected eastern cities. This document, supposedly written by republicans would achieve prominence throughout the next few months. The reactions to the document by both political parties were certainly passionate, and served as “proof” of what many democrats feared about republican aims. “Miscegenation,” initially an unknown word to the American people, would soon permeate the newspapers and become commonplace in both political and public discourse. The term itself came to replace “amalgamation of the races” as the vernacular to describe the abomination of race mixing and “instantly acquired all sorts of salacious and derisive connotations.”
The anonymous document was not written by republicans at all. It was penned by New York World reporters David Goodman Croly and George Wakeman, both of whom were in fact staunch democrats, anti-abolitionists, and fervent racists. Their plan was to discredit the republican party by publishing a document under a republican guise that explicated that the definitive object of emancipation was not merely civil rights and Black Suffrage, but a union of the races, and “that in the millennial future, the most perfect and highest type of manhood will not be white or black, but brown or colored.” Through this publication, Croly and Wakeman were hoping to promote public outrage at the Republican Party, and on some level, they succeeded. Indeed, the New York Herald proclaimed that as the republicans were the party in favor of abolition, they were therefore the “party of miscegenation,” and the party of emancipation would instead be referred to as the party of amalgamation.
The pamphlet would become a recurring topic for debate and discussion throughout 1864, and the preferred focus for nearly all racists and anti-abolitionists. However, for the first few weeks of its circulation not many copies were available to the public and, “the booklet attracted little attention.” Those first published were sent to individuals that Croly and Wakeman believed would best serve their purpose. Additionally, as the word “miscegenation” was for the most part unknown, it was not originally received as the highly inflammatory document it would soon become. In the first few weeks of the new year, the pamphlet began to increase in circulation, and by mid February had infiltrated American political discourse. Samuel Sullivan “Sunset” Cox declared to the house that, “the more philosophical and apostolic of the abolition fraternity have fully decided upon that adoption of this amalgamation platform.” Among abolitionists and African Americans, however, the pamphlet was well received, but with reservation. Although obviously in favor of emancipation and the eventual equality among races, they did not necessarily agree with the idea of miscegenation as the future of America. In his advance copies, Croly included “an unsigned request for a sympathetic response, to be sent to a New York post office box.” Croly then planned to distribute those responses to the democratic press, thereby trapping the Republican Party and theoretically ensuring a democratic victory in the forthcoming election.
The pamphlet itself is an emotionally written, extremely radical promotion of the notion that American society would not grow, prosper, or even survive without the blending of the races. On a variety of levels, the document was expertly drafted to agitate the public and many in both the democratic and republican parties. Granted, it was over-elaborate, but it is also easy to understand why so many viewed it as offensive, and perhaps shifted the opinions of some about the “great emancipator” and his party. From the onset, the pamphlet contends that its assertions are supportable by both “Christianity and science,” stating that “the teaching of physiology as well as the inspirations of Christianity settle the question that all tribes which inhabit the earth were originally derived from one type.” Further, that the racial differences between whites and blacks were not indicative of superiority and inferiority, but were merely reliant on temperature. “Submitted for a due time to a high temperature, any race, irrespective of its original color, will become dark, or if to a low temperature it will become fair.” Moreover, this implies that all races were absolutely connected and “there is no room for believing that the race of Negros does not descend from Adam.” It is certainly notable to mention that the use of religion reasoning was arguably more inflammatory than that any scientific justification. To imply that blacks and whites were not only linked biblically, but shared the same biblical parentage, was appalling for many American citizens. Furthermore, the document continues to declare that the memorialized image of Jesus Christ as a white man was untrue, and that Christianity was “intimately involved in race mixing.” Therefore the likelihood that Jesus was indeed white was miniscule; he was more likely “Mediterranean with dark hair and olive complexions,” and the true ideal man can only be accomplished by miscegenation. While the documents aspersions on biblical history may have invoked a fervent response alone, it continued to reveal that not only must Americans as a nation accept and embrace their common heritage, but they must come to understand that the path to future prosperity and survival is paved by miscegenation.
Croly and Wakeman state that without the blending of the races, Americans would become violent, brutal, and ignorant, like the Irish. The pamphlets attack on the Irish denoting them as the lowest people, is on the basis that they have never mixed their bloodlines. Notably, this is also a period of prominent Irish immigration, and many of the rioters in 1863 were indeed Irish. Moreover, the pamphleteers claimed the “power and vitality” of the American people did not come for their ancestors or purity, but from “all the different nationalities which make up this people.” Again, this would have been quite enough to achieve a visceral reaction from many, but the authors perhaps dug their own graves by pushing it even further. They stated that “all that is needed to make us the finest race on earth is to engraft upon our stick the Negro element which providence has placed by our side on this continent. Of all the rich treasures of blood vouchsafed to us, that of the Negro is the most precious, because it is the most unlike any other that enters into the composition of our national life.” The authors support statements like this by scrupulously listing the many benefits of race mixing and of how many nations of mixed blood have been successful and prosperous, referring notably to the Ancient Greeks.
The pamphlet rambles on extensively and extravagantly, but always refers back to these two main inciting themes: scientific and biblical history proves that the people of the world are connected and equal, and that the future of our species is doomed without race mixing and achieving the goal of “the most perfect type of man,” the Miscegen. The document also displays great respect and reverence for President Lincoln. As the man most directly responsible for emancipation, the pamphlet lauds his achievements and assigns radical beliefs and aspirations to the President that were decidedly untrue, but confirmed the fears of many democrats. “When the President proclaimed emancipation he proclaimed also the mingling of the races.” The raising up of slaves to “become the social and political equal of the white” was only the beginning, and it was Lincoln who began it and should therefore be revered. “Under the ordinance of nature, confirmed by the solemn act of President Lincoln, in the Emancipation Proclamation, there are no slaves today in law at the south.” Statement like this confirmed that Lincoln, as the President responsible for emancipation, would bring the American people into the future through encouraging miscegenation.
As stated earlier, when the term miscegenation was integrated in to American political and public language, it was attached to statements of intense emotion that manifested mainly in two ways, outlined by historian Forest G. Woods, author of The Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction. The first, to the delight of Croly and Wakeman, was that it was condemned and provoked disgust with the governing party. The second, however, is considerably more interesting. As there were very few, even within the Republican Party, who believed that miscegenation was a necessary step in the survival of America, and by extension mankind, the second response was not support of the document, but suspicion of it. Suspicion about who truly wrote the document, what their true purpose was, and of the evidence it provided. In 1864 a New York Times article declared the tenets of the miscegenation document to be inherently false but stating that the “placing of black men in the military service under the same flags as white soldiers, was treated as proof that the government was against any political or social distinction between the races, the disgusting term ‘miscegenation’ was invented to characterize the new policy of the government. But the people treated all this as balderdash, with the derision it deserved and gave their heartiest approval to the arming of colored men.” The National Republican of Washington D.C also ran an article denouncing the concept of miscegenation espoused by the pamphlet as a “proposition so helplessly absurd as to be unworthy of serious discussion.”
The articles and responses condemning the miscegenation pamphlet were written with equal tenacity as those that denounced it as absurd. In March of 1864, an article published in the New York Times asked “what are we coming to?” in regards to race mixing, and “what is to be done to stop this most unnatural and detestable movement?” referring to miscegenation. “That if it continues, there will soon be no whites left in this once great and prosperous country. We shall all be mullatoes, and be afflicted with all the peculiarities both mental and physical of that happy race. The signs of this great and terrible change already begin to make themselves manifest in our streets.” The Jeffersonian Newspaper chose to attack Lincoln and express their dissatisfaction with the President stating that “Mr. Abraham Lincoln has deliberately insulted the white working classes of the United States, he classes laboring white men with Negroes… in this brief sentence we have the new doctrine of miscegenation or amalgamation officially announced.” Also in March, the New York World, the paper Croly and Wakeman worked for, released an editorial attack on the pamphlet not only for its content, but ironically, because of the anonymity of the author. In this article, Croly questions the reasons for the republican author to remain anonymous in hopes of further inciting distrust in Lincoln’s party, but instead, raised further suspicions on the pamphlet itself. Croly’s reemphasis of the author’s anonymity called more attention to it, and is considered by Woods to be one of the first sloppy mistakes committed by the pamphleteers. “Anonymous writing was popular among racists, but not among abolitionists, most of whom were openly proud to be republicans.” Furthermore, Woods asserts that “because its statements were so fantastic, and because it was anonymous, it is doubtful that many Americans accepted the pamphlet as legitimate.”
“Miscegenation” did in fact become one of the most referred to documents by racists and anti-abolitionists, but Woods’ point is well received, as there was very little response in defense of miscegenation. The primary response other than indignation was disbelief. Acceptance of miscegenation as a truth and doctrine of the Republican Party was mostly accepted by their opponents who misappropriated the words and deeds of party members in order to give the appearance that the President’s party did indeed favor the amalgamation of the races. In March of 1864, Lincoln was accused by the Indianapolis State Sentinel of “openly and publicly supporting interracial marriage.” The following September, when Lincoln received Frederick Douglass to the White House, and “welcomed him with praiseworthy cordiality,” editors of the World saw this as tantamount to “supporting the viewpoint elaborated in miscegenation.”
The most disreputable response to the miscegenation pamphlet came from John H. Van Evrie when he published his counterpoint document in the summer of 1864 called “Subjenation: The Theory of Normal Relation of the Races, an Answer to Miscegenation.” Van Evrie took a position that is prevalent and consistent throughout the history of American white supremacist discourse: Defense of the virtue of white womanhood. Historian Sidney Kaplan quotes Van Evrie’s perspective on racial equality stating that “the equality of all whom God has created equal (white men), and the inequality of those He has made unequal (Negroes and other inferior races), are the cornerstones of American democracy, and the vital principle of American civilization and of the human progress.” In short, miscegenation is represented by a totalitarian monarchy, but Subjenation is indicative of a cooperative democracy.
Interestingly, the pamphlet was not revealed to be a hoax by Americans. In mid-October, a few weeks before the election of 1864, a New York City correspondent of the pro-Southern London Morning Herald mailed a dispatch that would appear in a feature article in November. The article stated that the pamphlet “was one of the most extraordinary hoaxes that has ever agitated the literary world” and it “was written by two young gentlemen connected with the newspaper press of New York, both of whom are obstinate democrats in politics.” The Herald writer submitted that the pamphleteers had “swindled everybody” by “employing the arguments of the Republicans,” and in doing so, “dexterously managed to make it appear that an amalgamation or miscegenation of the two races was not only desirable by inevitable.” Though Croly and Wakeman were not, at the time, successfully connected to the document, the Herald’s reveal of the pamphlet as a fake and a hoax vastly reduced the efficacy of accusation of the Republican Party as the party of miscegenation.
Woods contends that the most telling fact of the influence, or lack thereof, of the “Miscegenation” document, was the fact that Lincoln and the Republicans had won the election of 1864. He states that the “results show their effect (Croly and Wakeman) to have been negligible.” While it may be true that “Miscegenation” did not impact the results of the election, it is arguable that it did effect race relations and white supremacist discourse in Reconstruction and beyond. Though revealed as a hoax, the tenets the pamphlet asserted are continually referred to by the Ku Klux Klan, and many of its future incarnations, as the goal of the party that promotes equality among the races, including a fear that minorities will attempt to breed out the white race. Though Lincoln won the election, the issue of race relations that was brought to the forefront by the “Miscegenation Hoax” became a focal point for the Klan during the postwar period, through Reconstruction, and well into the 20th century.

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[ 2 ]. Kaplan, S. (1949). The Miscegenation Issue in the Election of 1864. The Journal of Negro History , 274-343.
[ 3 ]. Forest G. Woods. The Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 55.
[ 4 ]. [ David Goodman Croly, George Wakeman. (1863, December). Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro. p.1 ]
[ 5 ]. Woods, 57
[ 6 ]. Kaplan, 278
[ 7 ]. Kaplan, 300
[ 8 ]. Ibid., 282
[ 9 ]. Woods, 54
[ 10 ]. Kaplan, 295
[ 11 ]. Woods, 57
[ 12 ]. Kaplan, 278
[ 13 ]. Croly and Wakeman, 4
[ 14 ]. Ibid., 6
[ 15 ]. Woods, 56
[ 16 ]. Croly and Wakeman, 11
[ 17 ]. Ibid., 24
[ 18 ]. Ibid, 49
[ 19 ]. Ibid., 56
[ 20 ]. Woods, 54
[ 21 ]. New York Times, 1864
[ 22 ]. The National Republican, 1864
[ 23 ]. New York Times, 1864
[ 24 ]. The Jeffersonian, 1864
[ 25 ]. Woods, 58
[ 26 ]. Indianapolis State Sentinal, 1864
[ 27 ]. Kaplan, 314
[ 28 ]. Ibid., 326
[ 29 ]. Wood