His letter to Lafayette, with handwritten annotations - photo 1

His letter to Lafayette, with handwritten annotations

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Auction dateClassic
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -04:00
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ID 967538
Lot 25 | His letter to Lafayette, with handwritten annotations
His letter to Lafayette, with handwritten annotations

James Fenimore Cooper, ca. 1831

Letter of J. Fenimore Cooper to Gen. Lafayette, on The Expenditure of the United States of America. Paris: Baudry's Foreign Library, 1831.



"It belongs to you, in vindication of republican institutions, to correct certain allusions published in the Britannic Review" (Lafayette).



First edition of Cooper's defense of republicanism, annotated by the author. In 1826 Cooper moved with his family to Europe, where he soon acquired a great distaste for aristocratic corruption and found himself defending the United States against various accusations made against the country by European critics in the Revue Britannique. Cooper published the present work in response to charged levelled in that journal by Louis Sébastien Saulnier who purported to prove statistically that the cost of government in the United States was in fact far greater than that in France, or any other country. Both Lafayette and Cooper had been vehement supporters of the opposite view. "Lafayette had relied on this argument in the Chamber of Deputies for years; and Cooper, in Notions of the Americans, had attempted to show by two methods of computation that the American was the least expensive system of government" (Beard). Lafayette made a direct appeal to Cooper to set the record straight in a letter also published here: "It belongs to you, in vindication of republican institutions, to correct certain allusions published . . . besides our common American interest in this matter, I am anxious to undeceive those of my French colleagues who might, with safe consciences, oppose reductions in the ensuing budget, under the mistaken idea that taxation, in this country falls short of the expenses of federal and state governments in the United States." In his response Cooper "employed the best sources available to him to present a dignified analysis and refutation of Saulnier's article" (ibid.). Cooper annotates the present copy in the margins with checks and crosses and with a note on p. 33 against a passage addressing the relative returns in France and New York from roadway tolls: "this is one of those cases in which the infancy of the Country acts against it, but the Reviewer [Saulnier] says nothing to that effect. The debate, however, rumbled on and Cooper replied to a barrage of "fresh misstatements, mingled with great scurrility on the character, habits, and pursuits of the people of the United States" with a series of letters published in French between 24 February and 7 March in Le National. In one of these dated 25 February 1832, Cooper expands the point noted in the margin of this book: "In 1790, the population of the state of New York was only 340,130 individuals who inhabited a quarter of the total area of the state. Today, there are 2 million, who probably occupy more than three-quarters of the entire area. It is evident that in such a rapid expansion, the local taxes, for local amenities, must overtake those of a much older nation". BAL 3851; Beard II pp. 187-195; Sabin 16463; Spiller and Blackburn 15.



Octavo (220 x 140mm) with inked marginalia througout (pp. 10-20 torn away, one or two other marginal tears not affecting text). Sewn in in titled pink wrappers. Red cloth chemise and half red morocco slipcase. Provenance: [James Fenimore Cooper] (autograph annotations) – Christie's, New York, 3 December 2007, lot 411.

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