Reign Of Terror DBQ

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Was the Reign of Terror justified?

The Reign of Terror was one of the worst times in world history. This was a period of time when thousands of people were being executed for unfair reasons because of Robespierre- an absolute monarch who believed that torture and terror were required to have a strong constitutional law. The reign of terror was not justified because Enlightenment ideas were ignored, the rights of the common people were violated, and the methods of punishment were too harsh.

The first reason as to why the Reign of Terror was not justified is because Enlightenment ideas were ignored. The national assembly created The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens to give all citizens the same rights: liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression (Doc. A). Unfortunately, this was disregarded with the Reign of Terror. Another way that enlightenment ideas were ignored is the fact that a government official in western France wanted to kill people that were thought to be guilty without a fair trial; this was completely against Enlightenment ideas. The goal of the Reign of Terror according to Robespierre was that “In …show more content…

There were people dying at every second of the Reign of Terror, dozens of people were dying because of Robespierre and the guillotine. This was considered as a humane way of killing people because everyone died the same way and it was immediate (Doc. F). Unfortunately, many of the citizens were dying without a good reason or a fair trial. The citizens and counter-revolutionaries were being executed for the slightest thing such as saying a careless word of criticism about the government. Although the government did this to stop any rebellions from forming, they ended up doing much more than what was needed and going completely