In a 1794 speech, Maximilien Robespierre delivered a speech in which he equated democracy with virtue and justified the use of terror in defending democracy. Here are his main points:
· Democracy is a state where the sovereign people, guided by laws of their own making, do for themselves everything that they can do well, and by means of delegates everything that they cannot do for themselves.
· In order to achieve this, they must complete the war of liberty against tyranny
· Weakness, vices, and prejudices are the road to monarchy
· The first political maxim should be the one that guides the people by reason, and the enemies of the people by terror
· If the driving force of popular government in peacetime is virtue, that of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror.
· Virtue is impotent without terror; likewise, terror without virtue is destructive
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