Nine Letters on the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection

“FULL OF MALIGNITY AND ABUSE OF BURR”

CHEETHAM, James 

Nine Letters on the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection. 

New York: Denniston & Cheetham, 1803

8vo., half calf over marbled paper boards; contrasting leather label lettered in gilt to spine; pp. [iii], 4-139, [i]; a good, sound copy, the leather rubbed, scratched and peeling in places with a little loss to the upper layer; spine scuffed; the endpapers with some peeling, 20th century pencil annotations and a couple of small tape marks; the text block toned in accordance with age, with a couple of spots and corner creases; lightly cracked at title page with some webbing showing through; and one paper repair to upper right hand corner of p. [iii]-4, with a little loss of text. 

An uncommon pamphlet by the New York journalist James Cheetham, who here attacks the then Vice President for abandoning Republican principles in favour of radical Federalist policies and pursuing his own interests instead of that of his supposed party. The book begins with a fervent letter from Burr in which he writes that the claims being made against him as “FALSE and GROUNDLESS” and continues with a  series of responses by Cheetham, rebutting and rebuking him at every turn with reference to his “depth of wickedness” and “unheard of treachery”. “We have accused you of offences, which ought, if you are guilty of them, to banish you forever from the affections of all parties”, Cheetham writes. 

Such treatises were of course common at the time, and intended to ruin Burr’s political reputation. Published the year before the famous duel which killed his opponent Alexander Hamilton, it serves as a poignant reminder of the tension in America during a period of great upheaval. Burr's subsequent downfall, often referred to as the ‘Burr Conspiracy’ was viewed by many Federalists at the time as a treasonous act against the U.S. government.