Paulo Bonavides wrote that the Moderating Power "can only be appreciated for its role on the consolidation of national unity and the stability of the political system of the Empire" on “a continent politically flagellated by civil hatreds and pulverized into weak and rival republics.” For Galvão Sousa, the Moderating Power under Pedro II, “created the space for the famous 'dictatorship of honesty.' It soon became the personal power of the monarch, always exercised with a high public spirit”. The term "dictatorship" () used by the author does not have a pejorative connotation and merely exemplifies what he perceives as the force of morality and justice that Pedro II imposed in his role as constitutional monarch.