When I see a man flattering the people, making great professions of attachment to liberty, who is in private life a tyrant, Methinks, look out good people, that fellow would set you to turning grindstone.
When I see a man, holding a fat office, sounding ‘the horn on the borders,’ to call the people to support the man, on whom he depends for his office, Well thinks I, no wonder the man is zealous in the cause, he evidently has an ax to grind.
When I see a Governor, foisted into the chair of state, without a single qualification to render him either respectable or useful, — Alas! methinks, deluded people, you are doomed for a season to turn grindstone for a booby.*
When I see a foreigner expelled from his own country, and turning patriot in this — setting up a PRESS, and making a great ado about OUR liberties, I am very apt to think, — tho’ that man’s ax has been dulled in his own country, he evidently intends to sharpen it in this.*
Text taken from ‘Reminiscences of Honorable Charles Miner’ by Charles Francis Richardson, in ‘Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society’ Volume 14 (1915).
* A booby, in this context, is a stupid, foolish person. When Miner re-issued the story in book form, he replaced this paragraph and the paragraphs immediately before and after it with this: "When I see a man hoisted in office by party spirit — without a single qualification to render him either respectable or useful — Alas! methinks, deluded people, you are doomed for a season to turn grindstone for a booby.”
* Miner was a member of the Federalist Party, which twelve years earlier (1798) had attempted to silence critics of President John Adams by passing two controversial acts, the Sedition Act to make outspoken or intemperate criticism of Government policy a criminal offence, and the Alien Act to allow the President to deport summarily any foreign citizen he deemed undesirable. The latter was a measure designed for press censorship too, as the editors most critical of Adams included French and English nationals. The Acts caused widespread outrage and were not renewed after Adams left office in 1801, but it would seem Miner may have felt some regret. See Edward Livingston on Servants of the People.