Mr. Dicey clearly exhibits the bearing of the Rebellion upon the fate of the servile population of the South, and confesses that his deep sympathy with the Federal cause came from the conviction that the supremacy or overthrow of Slavery was intimately connected with the success or failure of Secession.  In acknowledging the necessity that was upon loyal Americans of defending the fundamental law of their society, he is not disposed to adopt the lamentation of some of our foreign well-wishers who are troubled by the fear of a military despotism in the Free States.  He has the sagacity to perceive that the genius and development of the graduates of Northern school-houses are totally opposed to a military rule.  Mr. Dicey cordially recognizes the democratic idea which sanctifies our convulsion, and displays a careful observation in noting “the self-restraint, the moderation, and the patience of the American people in the conduct of the people’s war.”  He is not over-disturbed because this same people loved law and order more than freedom itself, and with few murmurs committed high principles to the championship of whatever petty men happened to represent them.  Indeed, one of the best sayings he reports is that of an old Polish exile, who congratulates himself that there will be no saviours of society, no fathers of their country, to be provided for when the war is over.

Throughout these two volumes British readers may discern something more than the barren facts of our struggle:  they may catch glimpses of its energy and movement; they may see it as reflected from the most generous American minds.  For it seems to have been Mr. Dicey’s good fortune in this country to have gained admission to the society of men and women of high intelligence, in whom the religious sentiment was living and powerful; and he appears to estimate the full weight of testimony such persons offered in sending their loved ones to Virginia to fall beneath the rifle of some Southern boor.  It is this silent public opinion of the North which our foreign critics have generally failed to comprehend.  They have been so long accustomed to parody the rhetorical elation of our third-rate political speakers, and to represent this as a universal American characteristic, that they signally failed to estimate the genuine emotion with which it is never connected.  When the cherished barbarism of slaveholders arose and threatened our Western civilization, those who most felt and have best wrought for their country were cautious in their speech.  They knew that the principle underlying the struggle must submit itself to the checks and counter-checks of constitutional law.  While the fire of liberty burned at the heart of citizens of abiding loyalty, it seemed best, that, like the Psalmist, they should hold their peace even from good words.  Many thought it an act of necessary self-restraint to dwell only upon the Union as a symbol of that universal freedom which they felt the Union must finally represent.  The dread of overleaping the restraints of law, which, perchance, has prolonged the conflict, has been most creditable to the genuine democracy we have represented.  We are proud to remember many intelligent soldiers who used no language of passionate denunciation towards the guilty institution which called them to the field, yet who knew the end when they gave their lives to a cause utterly antagonistic to its despotic claims.