The Reign of Terror is Unjustified

1. It was completely inefficientReign of terror, before: Reign of Terror, after: Explanation: First off, many, many people died in the Reign of Terror. Between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed. [https://www.princeton.edu...] (We're not even counting the people who may have died battling the counter-revolutionaries) My opponent needs to justify these deaths. --But, even assuming THESE deaths were somehow justified (which they aren't), the ultimate outcome was for nothing. Napoleon was a dictator, EXACTLY what the people didn't want. And after Napoleon? They just returned the good old monarchs into their position. This counters what the people wanted! Robespierre wanted a democracy where all citizens were equal and had the same rights."What is the goal toward which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice whose laws have been inscribed, not in marble and stone, but in the hearts of all men, even in that of the slave who forgets them and in that of the tyrant who denies them.... In our land we want to substitute morality for egotism, integrity for formal codes of honor, principles for customs, a sense of duty for one of mere propriety, the rule of reason for the tyranny of fashion, scorn of vice for scorn of the unlucky; self-respect for insolence, grandeur of soul for vanity, love of glory for the love of money, good people in place of good society. . . . What kind of government can realize these wonders? Only a democratic or republican government—these two words are synonyms despite the abuses in common speech—because an aristocracy is no closer than a monarchy to being a republic... Democracy is a state in which the sovereign people, guided by laws which are of their own making, do for themselves all that they can do well, and by their delegates do all that they cannot do for themselves. It is therefore in the principles of democratic government that you should seek the rules of your political conduct."--Robespierre [https://chnm.gmu.edu...] But after the revolution, which killed so many people... it all came to NOTHING. All the terror, all the spying, all the wars--and what do we end up with? It's CERTAINLY not a democracy or a republic. The Reign of Terror is in no way justified purely on its outcome. But now, this is not the only problem with the Reign of Terror, of course. Onto my second point...2. (Unnecessary) intrusion of rights People were spied on during the Reign of Terror, [https://archive.org...] and as we know, just a single wrong spoken word could lead people to..... DEATH. From Steven Otfinoski's book, Triumph and Terror: The French Revolution, a passage states, "A careless word of criticism spoken against the government could put on in prison or worse". In fact, the accused were denied lawyers, and conviction was based on "intuition" at some time. These commissions killed an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people! These people simply don't deserve all this splying AND not to mention lack of rights. IN addition, on a related note, the Tribunal members had ABSOLUTE power. What the heck Robespierre. You talk of the terribleness of tyranny yet have a tyrannic group of people.... This is clearly AGAINST his original ideas and in no way justified.3. The counter-revolutionaries were JUSTIFIEDHere's the logic: If the counter-revolutionaries are justified, then the revolution/Reign of Terror was unjustified (Because the Reign of Terror killed the justified people). Firstly, we must note that there was a draft that forced all men to sign and war against the other enemies of France. [http://www.sparknotes.com...] But what if some of them had families? What if some were incapable of fighting? The was no room for arguments, just, "you go, kill enemies, because you are loyal to France". This is not it. People were pretty much FORCED to give up religion. Because Christianity and religion was deemed to be the "ancien regime", people took down churches and all those in churches' power. Furthermore, people disrespected crucifixes and religious representations. [http://v.gd...] You can't just take away religion. It's not like the churches were harming or a threat to the revolution. We don't even know if the churches were with the monarchs. (They have to compete for power anyways).To sum it all up, the Reign of Terror was a waste of resources and killed lots of innocent, justified people. It became so bad, the council even deemed the LEADER of the Terror itself--Robespierre--Corrupt, and ultimately the leader and speaker of the revolution was executed by the famous guilloitine. [http://www.history.com...]Onto you TheUnknown.