U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, gave a wonderful valedictory speech on the Senate floor this morning, closing his 42 years of service in the Senate — the longest term for anyone continuously serving as a Republican senator.

The themes he stressed — civility, pluralism, unity — were familiar for such valedictories, which could make them sound trite. But Hatch abided by those themes, lived those themes and, more important, is right about how essential they are to the American project. The importance of the themes isn’t trite, but true — and it’s time they again become tried and true, rather than lofty, now-unpracticed, aspirations of a bygone era.