Miscegenation (/mɪˌsɛdʒəˈneɪʃən/ mih-SEJ-ə-NAY-shən) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere ("to mix") and genus ("race") from the Hellenic γένος. The word first appeared in "Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro", a pretended anti-Abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 U.S. presidential election. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws.