ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant's political views clearly showed the influence of Montesquieu and Rousseau, whose works he had studied closely. He also accorded full recognition to the unprejudiced spirit of Frederick the Great. The North Americans' war of liberation against their English oppressors aroused his particularly strong support, in consequence of his own marked sense of independence. This was the cause of his previously mentioned clash with the Englishman Joseph Green, who subsequently became his best friend. Kant would naturally have preferred things to have taken a more peaceful course in France. His future publisher, F. Nicolovius, reports that in 1794 Kant was still a complete democrat and of the opinion that all the atrocities which were being committed were insignificant in comparison with the lasting evil of despotism, which had previously existed in France, and that in all probability the Jacobins were right in their current actions.
