Prosecution of Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien Robespierre did not justifiably utilize terror during the French revolution because he manipulated Enlightenment beliefs to validate his personal timetable. As a result of his frequent use of the death penalty, people’s “virtue” or love for the government became a way for Robespierre to create a fascist nation, not a democracy. The major goal of the Enlightenment oriented revolutionaries was to create a democracy through the participation of the population, but Robespierre’s use of terror in issuing frequent death penalties favored a radical group and forced other groups to participate in his pseudo democracy. Robespierre’s interpretation of virtue as “nothing other than the love of country
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Building off of the assumption that people naturally love their country and prioritize its needs before their own, Robespierre puts himself in a supreme power/ ultimate decision making position where he determines that terror is the appropriate course of action to further the revolution. In putting himself in an ultimate decision making position, Robespierre essentially becomes a self-proclaimed/ self-appointed dictator, which is ironic since the French Revolution was centered around replacing the top-down government with a democratic …show more content…
Lastly, the governing body that Robespierre belonged to silenced the voices of the people that could possibly delay the progress of the revolution, which is the antithesis of the principles of government set forth in the first stage of the French Revolution.
Works Cited
Alpaugh, Micah. "Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from the Rights of Man to Robespierre." Canadian Journal of History, vol. 49, no. 3, Winter 2014, pp. 505-507. EBSCOhost.
Billias, George Athan. American Constitutionalism Heard Round the World, 1776-1989: a Global Perspective. New York, New York University Press, 2016.
“Fascism.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism.
France. Assemblée Nationale Constituante (1789-1791). Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. By Marquis De Lafayette. N.p.: n.p., 1850.
Building off of the assumption that people naturally love their country and prioritize its needs before their own, Robespierre puts himself in a supreme power/ ultimate decision making position where he determines that terror is the appropriate course of action to further the revolution. In putting himself in an ultimate decision making position, Robespierre essentially becomes a self-proclaimed/ self-appointed dictator, which is ironic since the French Revolution was centered around replacing the top-down government with a democratic …show more content…
Lastly, the governing body that Robespierre belonged to silenced the voices of the people that could possibly delay the progress of the revolution, which is the antithesis of the principles of government set forth in the first stage of the French Revolution.
Works Cited
Alpaugh, Micah. "Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from the Rights of Man to Robespierre." Canadian Journal of History, vol. 49, no. 3, Winter 2014, pp. 505-507. EBSCOhost.
Billias, George Athan. American Constitutionalism Heard Round the World, 1776-1989: a Global Perspective. New York, New York University Press, 2016.
“Fascism.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism.
France. Assemblée Nationale Constituante (1789-1791). Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. By Marquis De Lafayette. N.p.: n.p., 1850.