He is the kind of national hero the admiring imitation of whom can do nothing but good.
Lincoln had abandoned the illusion of his own peculiar personal importance.

He had become profoundly and sincerely humble, and his humility was as far as possible from being either a conventional pose or a matter of nervous self-distrust.

It did not impair the firmness of his will.

It did not betray him into shirking responsibilities.

Although only a country lawyer without executive experience, he did not flinch from assuming the leadership of a great nation in one of the gravest crises of its national history, from becoming commander-in-chief of an army of a million men, and from spending $3,000,000,000 in the prosecution of a war.