William Marvel: Remembering America

I am writing this column on July 4, which may be the only day of the year that national reflection might not raise objections. The date reminded me of a conversation I had more than three decades ago with a fellow historian about our respective views of the United States. We were sitting in his air-conditioned office on a former Virginia plantation, discussing some forgotten topic related to the Civil War, when — agitated by an arduous, day-long drive down Interstate 95 — I muttered something about the utter stupidity of the American people. The New Jersey Turnpike has a way of instilling such misanthropic opinions among those unfortunates who are lured onto that corridor.

I did not know him well then, except by name, and for a moment I feared my observation might have offended him. With my lifelong habit of blurting out whatever is on my mind, I spend a lot of time wondering about unintended slights, although most often I seem only to have expressed my listeners’ unspoken thoughts. That was the case on that day in the late 1980s. In a response that I can only paraphrase, he revealed that we were in complete accord about our country.