. In a stark contrast to such a long-lasting
process of transformation, a ‘‘great people’’ had in the course of a few years
transformed its society into a representatively governed republican state, as Kant
mentioned in a footnote to Paragraph 66 of his Critique of Judgment (Wagner
2012a). With this remark, the philosopher refers to the thirteen American colonies
of the British Crown, which in 1776 declared their independence, eleven years later
formed their first government and by 1789 had drafted their Constitution with
Amendments in the form of a Bill of Rights.