He cannot be fully understood and properly valued as a national hero without an implicit criticism of those traditional convictions.

Such a criticism he himself did not and could not make.

In case he had made it, he could never have achieved his great political task and his great personal triumph.

But other times bring other needs.

It is as desirable to-day that the criticism should be made explicit as it was that Lincoln himself in his day should preserve the innocence and integrity of a unique unconscious example..