He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1863, subscribed to the Jamaica Committee around 1865, and was appointed to the Vinerian Chair of English Law at Oxford in 1882, a post he held until 1909.

In the book, he defined the term constitutional law as including "all rules which directly or indirectly affect the distribution or the exercise of the sovereign power in the state".

[7] He understood that the freedom British subjects enjoyed was dependent on the sovereignty of Parliament, the impartiality of the courts free from governmental interference and the supremacy of the common law.

"[16] He was thus bitterly disillusioned by the Anglo-Irish Treaty agreement in 1921 that Southern Ireland should become a self-governing dominion (the Irish Free State), separate from the United Kingdom.

Dicey was also vehemently opposed to women's suffrage, proportional representation (while acknowledging that the existing first-past-the-post system was not perfect), and to the notion that citizens have the right to ignore unjust laws.

Dicey viewed the necessity of establishing a stable legal system as more important than the potential injustice that would occur from following unjust laws.