Background

James Cheetham was born in 1772 in Manchester, England.

Career

At the end of the eighteenth century Manchester was restless under the first stirring of the Industrial Revolution and the disquieting news from France. Men of liberal and revolutionary mind were organizing societies for criticism of the government. Of these the most important perhaps was the Constitutional Society, of which Thomas Cooper and Thomas Walker were the leading spirits, and James Cheetham, then a young hatter of Manchester, one of the humbler members. On July 23, 1793, Cheetham was arrested with other members of the society charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government. He was freed the following April because of the failure of evidence against him. He continued to live in Manchester until the riots of 1798 forced him to remove to America at a time when the United States was passing through the changes incidental to the political revolution of 1800.

Inclined by sympathy to the side of the victorious Republicans Cheetham found employment in their interest in New York. He bought a half interest in Greenleaf’s Argus, and on May 1, 1801, in partnership with D. Denniston, a cousin of DeWitt Clinton, issued it under the name of the American Citizen, a daily newspaper devoted to the furtherance of Republican policies. They published also the American Watchman as a weekly paper. The tradition is that Burr was interested in the establishment of the paper, expecting to use it as political support.

The breach between the Burr and Clinton factions of the party made it necessary for Cheetham to choose whom he would serve, and in spite of the probability that his first support had come from Burr he decided to follow the fortunes of the Clintons, and became Burr’s bitter political enemy. It was he who first made the suggestion in A View of the Political Conduct of Aaron Burr that Burr had not dealt honorably in his efforts to obtain the presidency in 1800. The language of the charges is vindictive, and the style pretentious and verbose. Cheetham based these charges that the Vice-President had made a treacherous alliance with the Federalists on the fact that Burr had ordered suppressed a libelous anti-Federalist work by one John Wood, called A History of the Administration of John Adams.

The battle of uncivil words went on; Peter Irving of the Morning Chronicle and William Coleman of the Evening Post opposed the Clinton editor. Bad feeling brought Cheetham and Coleman to the verge of a duel, averted only by the action of Brockhoist Livingston in arresting both of them. In 1802 Cheetham made the acquaintance of Thomas Paine, “an intercourse, ” he says, “more frequent than agreeable. ” Respect for Paine, enduring from the impressionable Manchester days, turned to contempt for the unpleasant old man Paine had become, and Cheetham’s distorted and partisan Life of Thomas Paine (1809) makes no concealment of his feeling.

Cheetham gathered up such crumbs of patronage as he could, feeling that all good Republicans were in duty bound to give their printing business to his establishment. His letters to Jefferson are filled with minor complaints of neglect and with political tattlings. As time went on he figured less prominently in New York politics; his opposition to the embargo cost him the favor of the Clintons, and his paper was supplanted by the Columbian. He died on September 19, 1810, of a congestion of the brain brought on by walking hatless in the September sun.

Achievements

• James Cheetman was well-known as the editor and publisher of American Citizen. Under his leadership, it became the influential Republican newspaper and the leading organ of Clinton faction in New York politics.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A narrative of the suppression by Col. Burr, of the History of the administration of John Adams, late president of the United States, written by John ... verbatim from the suppressed history

    (This book is a replica of the original from the collectio...)

  • Letters on our affairs with Spain

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The new crisis

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Nine letters on the subject of Aaron Burr's political defection: with an appendix

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • The life of Thomas Paine

    (This book is a replica, produced from digital images of t...)

Politics

James was an outspoken citric of Aaron Burr, a politician.

Membership

Cheetman was a member of the Constitutional Society.

References

• The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 34: 1 May to 31 July 1801