Verango 1

Axcel Verango

Mrs. Beckedahl

World History Period 3

16 September 2019

The Reign of Terror: Justified or Not?

Imagine this, you decide to steal some food because you feel like it and you end up

getting caught. Do you believe you’re going to go unpunished? During the Reign of Terror,

everyone who committed some sort of crime was punished and that leads me to one final

question. Was the Reign of Terror justified? To be fair, the Reign of Terror was justified because

of the many benefits it brought such as reduction of commotion among the public, bringing the

country to a peaceful reign, and making the victim’s deaths fast and painless.

To start off with, many counter-revolutionary activities and gatherings that took place

during the reign. As said in the previous sentence and in Document D & C, there were many

counter-revolutionary protests and gathering that took place that ended with some fatalities on

both sides. In order to reduce the amount of commotion going on, the National Convention used

the Reign of Terror to “calm things down a bit”.

Secondly, the Reign of Terror played a major role in bringing France to a peaceful reign.

Stated in Documents C & G, “..in order to come to a peaceful reign, they must put an end to the

war of liberty against tyranny.” This eventually ended “the war” of liberty against tyranny and

brought a peaceful reign to the country.

Furthermore, the method of execution ended the victim’s life instantly. According to

Document F, death by the guillotine was instant. Many may argue that the way of execution used
 Verango 2

during the Reign of Terror was inhumane. But, if you were to think about it, it’s a much more

humane form of execution compared to making the accused suffer a slow and painful death.

Although many individuals have to disagree with this statement, it was necessary for

France in order to win the Revolution. The many benefits that the Reign of Terror really helped

France with coming out the victor of the Revolution. It helped with constricting the amount of

counter-revolutionary activities taking place. In addition to that, it brought France to a peaceful

reign. And to top it all off, the executions that took place were fast and painless deaths.