 The upshot, as noted above, is that everyone seems to have an absolute obligation to obey the laws of whoever is in authority; for even if the ruler “proceeds contrary to law … subjects may indeed oppose this injustice by complaints … but not by resistance” (1991, p. 130, emphasis in original; also pp. 176–77). Kant’s comments on this point are not unqualified, though. Among other things, he states that “the spirit of the original contract … involves an obligation on the part of the constituting authority to make the kind of government suited to the Idea of the original contract”; and he immediately adds that “the only constitution that accords with right” is “that of a pure republic” – that is, “the constitution in which law itself rules and depends on no particular person” (1991, p. 148, emphasis in original; for further discussion, see Ripstein 2009, chap. 11). In any case, it is not so much Kant’s conclusions as the foundations of his theory that have proved so important to contemporary discussions of political obligation.