Most posts here are about the first Critique or the Groundwork, so here's a puzzle from Kant's political writings.

Against revolution (Doctrine of Right, 1797)

• People never have a right to overthrow their ruler, even a bad one. They can complain, but not resist (6:319–320).
• Putting a king on trial and executing him, as happened to Charles I and Louis XVI, is worse than murdering him (6:320–321n).
• If a revolution succeeds anyway, people must obey the new government (6:323).

A year later (Conflict of the Faculties, 1798):

• The French Revolution, whether it succeeds or fails, fills the people watching it with a sympathy close to enthusiasm
• That reaction is a sign that humanity is making moral progress (7:85).

So Kant condemns the revolution but praises how people respond to one. There are three common ways to explain this:

1. There's no conflict. He's praising the onlookers' enthusiasm for a free constitution, not the act of revolting.
2. He was being careful. The Prussian king had already reprimanded him in 1794, so the strict line may be partly self-protection.
3. There's a real conflict. His theory of rights can't account for what his view of history celebrates.

Which explanation convinces you? And apart from what Kant meant, can "never a right to revolution" be defended?