Donald J. Trump gave a gracious victory speech Tuesday night when it became clear he would be elected as the 45th president of the United States.

The candidate he defeated, Hillary Rodham Clinton, took a few barbs for failing to speak last night to concede the election to Trump.

Then she stepped to the microphone this morning and delivered perhaps the best political speech of her life. It likely was the final political speech of her lengthy career, one that spans more than three decades.

At one level — possibly a vague one — her speech reminded me just a bit of the late Ted Kennedy’s “the dream shall never die” speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Sen. Kennedy lost his party’s nomination fight to President Carter and then spoke to the convention, declaring that the “fight goes on” despite his defeat for the party nomination.

There was an element of that in Clinton’s speech today, although she also spoke to Trump becoming the president for all Americans.

It was a gracious and graceful exit from the national political stage and it speaks well — once again — of how American politicians can set aside their pain for the good of the nation they seek to lead.