Fremantle believes that Southerners are essentially Englishmen at heart, or to be more specific, English aristocrats. And like the English aristocrats they feel themselves to be deep down, they have no time for democracy. The South has tried the century-long experiment of democracy, but it clearly hasn't worked out. Once the war is over, and the South has won—as Fremantle is certain it will—then he hopes that the Confederacy will request to be part of Great Britain once again, with the Queen as head of state.

Fremantle is so certain of Southern victory because he believes that the South is culturally a part of Europe in a way that the North is not. He regards the North with contempt, seeing it as full of seething, overcrowded cities, crammed with immigrant workers speaking dozens of different languages. Unlike the South, this is a place where the old aristocratic spirit has long since gone, replaced by an aristocracy of wealth.