General :: Termination Of Xtern Launching An Application With Xterm -e?

I wanted to launch sqlite3 with the command:

xterm -e sqlite3 /path/to/database "SELECT * FROM TABLE;" &

The xterm window flashes for a moment and then terminates. Exactly the same result is encountered with:

a) xterm -e /bin/bash -l -c "sqlite3 /path/to/database "SELECT * FROM TABLE;"" (as suggested in man xterm)

b)giving an alias in .bashrc to:
sqlite3 /path/to/database "SELECT * FROM TABLE;"
and running: xterm -e alias

c)giving: xterm -e echo "something"

d)using: konsole -e sqlite3 /path/to/database "SELECT * FROM TABLE;" &

If a launch sqlite3 with:

xterm -e sqlite3 /path/to/database &

The xterm window launches with no problem and sqlite3 opens the database as expected. If I enter "SELECT * FROM TABLE;" every thing works as expected and I get the correct result.

The same applies if I launch xterm with: xterm & and then: sqlite3 /path/to/database "SELECT *FROM TABLE;" to the command line.I sometimes use xterm -e to launch applications to a separate window and never had the slightest problem. I suspect it might be a bash thing (konsole and echo not working as well as above stated) and not an xterm thing. I made a search in man bash for quoting and backslashing but it didn't bright up things.