Reign Of Terror Dbq Analysis

During the French Revolution, revolutionaries wanted to create a government that would value people’s rights. Unfortunately, violence started to play a role in order to achieve the goals of the revolution. The period in which the violence started became known as the Reign of Terror. Individual rights were being ignored and thousands of people were being executed because they were suspected of aiding or being an enemy. The Reign of Terror was not justified because the actions toward external threat did not require it, the actions toward internal threat did not deserve it, and the methods that were used were to extreme.
The external threat of foreign armies in France does not justify the actions that were taken during the Reign of Terror. In Document B it shows a timeline of events that occurred during the Reign of …show more content…
In Document F it shows a picture of what it would look like if a person is being guillotined in a town. That person would be publically humiliated for what he has done or what he is accused of doing and then he would be killed. The only thing this can accomplish in a town is that the people would be living in fear since they don’t want to be falsely accused and that they would be living in a fake peace. There is no justification in these types of actions because they would only lead to fear and conflict. In Document G it says “We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish.” This is basically saying that everyone that is in the Republic must die or that France and its revolution will perish. To think of killing all your enemies is pretty extreme since you are not able to find a solution through peaceful ideas. There are many other things you can do if someone is a threat to you, such as making an agreement instead of killing thousands of people. The actions and ideas that came up during the Reign of Terror were too extreme and not