Maximilian Robespierre (1758-1807) needs no introduction. Tyrant, madman, purifier, radical republican, cultist, impaler, terror incarnate. All have been words used to describe the man himself. In many ways, there are no better words to describe him. Where to begin with the man who broke America asunder? Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was born in early May of 1758 in the city of Baltimore. His parents were forced to flee France due to scandal (Maximilien was conceived and born out of wedlock) and ended up in Baltimore, Maryland. The ship was intended for the French colonies, but a storm blew the ship off course and the couple ended up in the middle of British North America. On the verge of giving birth, Maximilien's father and mother claimed to be Hugenots escaping persecution (to avoid facing anti-Catholic persecution). It was a bold lie, but it worked. The couple was reluctantly accepted into Baltimore society. His father proved to be an able lawyer and after developing fluency in English (and ensuring that his son's first language was English), set up a successful law practice. Little is known about the specifics of Maximilien's (he would later change his name to the more German sounding "Maximilian" after registering for the University of Pennsylvania) childhood. Any documents about his youth seem to have been destroyed and any first hand accounts from his siblings would be impossible to find thanks to the brutal Post-Robespierre Purges of 1807-1811. This has lead to numerous psycho-historians theorizing about his youth and upbringing. Some believe he was subject to abuse as a child, others believe he was show too much love from his mother. And still others argue he had a normal childhood. Regardless, the only concrete details that first appear are in the days of the Revolution. His father was a firm patriot and when the American War of Independence began, young Maximilian would join the cause. Robespierre was no fighter, this much is certain. However even from a young age he had managed to demonstrate an uncanny ability to persuade through grand speeches and fiery pamphlets. So it was that he earned fame early in his life as a firm advocate for liberty and freedom. Upon the conclusion of the war in 1783, the famed pamphleteer and orator enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania with the backing of the famed Benjamin Franklin, whom the young Robespierre befriended. He finished his courses with high marks and received Juris Doctor degree. Shortly afterwards he moved back to Baltimore and took over his father's law practice upon his mysterious death. Many expected the young and dashing Robespierre to marry, but he never did. He always brushed the matter off as "a distraction from his work". As the years went by, Robespierre would become very influential in the state government and his numerous pamphlets describing political theory and philosophy became famed across the country and bolstered his reputation as a defender of liberty and virtue.
Upon the adoption of the Constitution in the late 1780s, young Maximilian chose to leave his local law practice and his unofficial role in the Maryland State Government to run for Congressional District that covered Baltimore. He ran as an independent (as all were in those days) and won with no significant opposition. Upon his ascension to the House, Robespierre set to work establishing his national profile. During this time, the Marylander would befriend the man that wrote the Declaration of Independence, the man that would become one of the greatest critics of the Federalists, and the man that would become his second in command during the last years of the Republic: Thomas Jefferson. The two had a great deal in common. They were both strong proponents of liberty, both were opponents of the “crypto-monarchist” Federalists, both were writers and speakers rather than fighters, and both had a strong antipathy towards religion. These two pinnacles of the Enlightenment were a match made in Hell. The period of 1789-1797 was of little consequence. Robespierre would briefly serve a turn as Speaker, but was soon forced out. It was the Adams Presidency that sent the world spinning.
John Adams was a well meaning man, all things considered. While he did a number of deeds that either stretched or violate the definition of legal and constitutional, he was not necessarily an evil man. In many ways he was simply a man that understandably hated to be insulted and was being manipulated and controlled by a man far more controlling than he, Alexander Hamilton (who was also not an evil man). But it was Adams’ Presidency that caused the ascension of Robespierre. Every action that Adams took was blasted by Robespierre as the makings of a monarch and puppet of the British. Matters came to a head when a pamphlet penned by Robespierre that insinuated that Adams was in fact a British Spy sent to proclaim himself King of all America and swear eternal allegiance to the British Empire. As that was patently untrue, it was in violation of the Sedition Act. An attempt by Adams loyalists led to Robespierre’s near expulsion and arrest. It was this moment, this event was a watershed moment for the Adams Administration. Violent protests roared across the country at the idea of one of the most popular men in the country, a famed patriot and lover of liberty being sent to prison for criticism of the President. In the end, the immense public outroar and deteriorating stability convinced Adams and Hamilton that an error had been made. All attempts to silence Robespierre ceased. By 1800, it was clear who would challenge Adams for the Presidency.
The election of 1800 was a brutal affair. Adams was desperate to remain in power while also purging the influence of Alexander Hamilton within the Federalist Party. The Democratic Republicans for the most part rallied behind Robespierre who announced his intent to seek the Presidency with Aaron Burr placed in the slot for Vice President. Some voiced concerns over Robespierre’s young age, but Jefferson silenced these concerns by his enthusiastic endorsement of “The man that terrorized the tyrant Adams” and touting him as “A man of liberty”. There were others in the party that wished for someone of good Virginian stock to run, but to no avail. The general campaign was nasty. Adams accused Robespierre of being some sort of atheistic radical that would burn America in the name of "liberty" and flood the nation with Papists. Robespierre fired back harder. Every campaign poster depicted Adams wearing a crown and whipping the American people as if they were peasants. Newspaper articles insinuated that Adams was "a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, not the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." It only got worse from there. With accusations of cuckoldry and bastardy, Washington's hopes of the republic continuing down a path of camaraderie, civility, and cooperation were dead in the water. Thanks to the complicated method of Electors having two votes and no distinctions being made between the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate, for the Democratic Republicans to truly win they needed Robespierre to have one more vote than Burr. After some fears that it would result in a tie, the final tally of the Electoral College was Robespierre 78, Burr 77, Adams 60, and Pinckney 59. Maximilian Robespierre had been elected as the Third President of the United States.
From the beginning, there were signs. John Adams in his final days in office tried to at least stack the courts in his favor. Robespierre challenged these appointments and through a highly convoluted series of legal arguments, managed to successfully have all the positions declared illegally filled. He then stacked the courts with his own cronies. With Thomas Jefferson by his side, the first two years of Robespierre's first term were devoted to two goals. The first was the enactment of universal (white) male suffrage. The main purpose of the proposal being that by and large, Robespierre was extremely popular with the common man and would be able to use his popularity to push in his supporters into Congress. This was widely considered to have been an impossible demand. With most of Congress against him, Robespierre was forced to look to different avenues for whipping up support. So he went forth and toured America whipping up support for his proposal. What this amounted to, was the President whipping up mobs of angry non-property owning white men and convincing them to storm the offices of their local politicians demanding they support the proposal. At first Robespierre claimed that it was simply an attempt to garner support, it soon evolved into the President convincing the people to harass and
lynch politicians that opposed them. By the end of 1801, several states were bogged down in what amounted to a near continuous state of rioting. Over all, nearly 20 members of Congress were lynched by Robespierre's mobs. But whenever anyone tried to attack him on the matter, he managed to use a near inhuman level of charm to convince his opponents that he had nothing to do with it. The American people were simply making their voice heard. The breaking point arrived when the state militias began to join the rioters and lynch mobs. With their only form of protection gone, the states began to abolish property requirements for voting. Of course, there were many that were absolutely furious with this turn of events. One of the biggest critics of this bullying tactic was Alexander Hamilton, who had managed to rebound from his humiliating fall from grace during the 1800 election. Leading the charge against what was by an reasonable measure blatantly illegal and immoral tactics to concentrate power into the hands of one person. The irony of Alexander Hamilton criticizing someone of doing that was lost on everyone at the time. Charges of treason that were blatantly false on close glance but seemingly legitimate given a cursory glance and if one was biased were drawn up by the Attorney General against Alexander Hamilton in June of 1802. The specific charges indicated that Hamilton was in fact in charge of a monarchist British spying ring and was trying to destroy America by turning it into an aristocratic, monarchist, feudal state. It was utter nonsense, but given his reputation and lack of allies in the Government, many believed the accusations to be true. Hamilton was tipped off about his impending arrest and managed to flee the country before he could be taken to "trial". The fact that he had been tipped off triggered Robespierre's paranoia. Someone in his government had betrayed him. So he and Jefferson devised a plan. They both knew that the spy ring was fictional, but not many others did. Therefore, they could use fears of Britain and monarchism to find traitors and get rid of them. Thus with the flight of Alexander Hamilton, the Great Terror began.
Perhaps the Great Terror would merely have been legal purges had it not been for the Barbary War. It is one of histories greatest what ifs. What if Robespierre had not been pressured into going to war with the pirates? What if the Ottomans had not gotten involved? What if during negotiations for the peace treaty the Ottoman Sultan had not been so impressed by Robespierre that he gifted him that book? In the end, all one can do is go mad with speculation. The cold hard truth is all that remains. Robespierre
was convinced to refuse the demands of Barbary Pirates. The Ottomans
had gotten involved. And the Ottoman Sultan
did gift the man who would become one of histories greatest tyrants a book that chronicled the life and times of the man that gave the Turks nightmares for centuries, Vlad Țepeș. Who knows how the world would have turned out had Robespierre simply been given a different book. Unfortunately we are stuck in the world we live in and in the world we live in, Robespierre grew to idolize Vlad the Impaler. Upon the swift conclusion of the War in 1804, the President worked on his reelection. While Jefferson handled the reelection campaign, the President focused on cementing his grasp on power. Slowly, quietly, the Sedition Act (but not the Alien Act) was reinstated. With the successful conclusion to the war over and the passage of what amounted to Universal Male Suffrage (as long as you were white and not a papist) as well as the reveal that Alexander Hamilton was a spy, the Robespierre Administration was in very good shape for reelection on paper. In practice, the Federalists were working behind the scenes to try and convince the potential electors to pick anyone but Robespierre. There was a reckoning once word was leaked to Robespierre. Absolutely livid, he nearly ordered the arrest of the conspirators then and there. Jefferson convinced him to remain calm and manage the situation in a more subtle way. So it was in October of 1804, word of Federalist attempts to rig the Electoral College was leaked to the press. The public outcry was severe. The people of America stormed a number of government buildings searching for prominent Federalists that may or may not have been part of the scheme. The coup de grace was when a number of electors were found conspiring with Federalist candidate John Jay in a tavern in rural New York. The electors were beaten with an inch of their lives and no one knew what happened to Jay until January of 1805. Robespierre and Jefferson sought to capitalize on the popular uproar by announcing that a second revolution was to take place in America.
Suffice to say, Robespierre very dubiously won the 1804 election. In January of 1805, it was announced that John Jay was a member of the British Crypto-monarchist conspiracy and had allegedly confessed to his crimes. His punishment was to be the only fitting punishment for treason: death. But before his very public execution was to take place, Vice President Aaron Burr leapt into action. Using both legitimate and illegitimate means, Burr managed to rally enough support in Congress (via various forms of appeal) to attempt an impeachment against Robespierre. In what was a stunning twist of fate, the House easily passed articles of impeachment against the President and it was down to the Senate for the conviction. The President and Jefferson were not going to take this lying down. With news spreading of Congress trying to impeach the President, the two men sought to bring the Revolution they had announced earlier to fruition. Militias were formed, most being called “The Legions of Liberty”. The Legions were commanded to overthrow the old order and to establish a new one, to bring the American Revolution to fruition. The day the Senate met to hold Robespierre’s trial, the Legions of the Loyal from the areas surrounding Washington marched upon the Capitol. The lone guard of the capitol’s name has been lost to history, but all post-Robespierre regimes consider the man to be a martyr. The story goes that the Legions marched up the steps of the Capitol only to be stopped at the door by the guard who refused to budge. The leader of the Legion begged him to move as their quarrel was with the traitors in Congress, not with a ‘Good loyal man such as yourself.’ The guard responded ‘I care not a pfennig about you, your mob, or your President. As long as I draw breath you shall not harm the men in there doing their Constitutional duty.’ Enraged, the Legion beat the guard to death before hanging him on a flag pole. The Legion marched in the Capitol and ransacked the building. Upon reaching the Senate chamber, mob the launched themselves upon the gathered Senators. Those that were lucky were simply shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. The unlucky ones were captured alive. The prisoners tortured for information on the “British Monarchist spy ring” by the President’s men, with the President sitting in to watch the torture on prominent individuals such as the Vice President and former President Adams. Upon hearing what it is they wanted to hear, the President announced that the traitors would meet the justice they deserved. So it was on February 14, 1805 that 25 prominent men were publicly executed via impalement in the Mall. The first man to be impaled was Vice President Aaron Burr. Minutes before his death his charges were read out. Apparently Aaron Burr was the one that tipped off Alexander Hamilton back in 1802. He was the one that had masterminded the attempt to remove Robespierre via the Electoral College. He was the first man to be impaled, but he was certainly not the last. On that bloody day in February, former President John Adams and former Chief Justice John Jay were among the 25 executed via public impalement.
Soon the fight against “traitors” and “crypto-monarchists” spread beyond just the political class. Both Robespierre and Jefferson had long been attacked as being atheists. In spite of the truth of the matter, the President had become convinced that the churches were plotting against him, which they were. Pushing forward with his radical Enlightenment based ideals regarding religion, Robespierre for all intents of purposes declared war on the church. Prominent church leaders were rounded up and arrested on charges of treason, crypto-monarchism, and Papism. Churches were destroyed and the materials were used for other purposes. Ministers and priests were publicly executed. Newly appointed Secretary of Public Safety Thomas Jefferson oversaw the creation of a banned materials list, including a number of books deemed to be “monarchist” and “anti-democratic” which saw mass burnings of Bibles. This was the first moment that many of the average citizens began to have second thoughts. Sure, some of the priests were obviously guilty of opposing the President, but was it really necessary to burn Bibles?
1806 saw a radical shift in policy. Thomas Jefferson had been Robespierre’s strongest ally and advocate for many years. Thomas Jefferson was a true man of the Enlightenment. He believed in the equality of man, he had weird opinions on religion, and was an immense hypocrite via his love of owning slaves while proclaiming that all men were created equal. The question of slavery caused great consternation between the two radicals. Jefferson obviously benefitted from such institutions while Robespierre was an idealist at heart and wished to liberate the blacks from the shackles of slavery. In late 1806, the President had started drafting up legislation to abolish slavery and give them the franchise. Jefferson was appalled. So, late at night after the President had fallen asleep, Jefferson snuck into Robespierre’s office and stole the document off his desk. No one is sure why he thought this scheme would work, but perhaps Jefferson had been driven to desperation. Robespierre woke up the next morning enraged that someone had stolen a document off his desk. To rectify this, he forced through another version of the bill and had anyone that had access to his office tortured for information until someone finally cracked and admitted that it was Jefferson. Whatever tethers Robespierre may have had on reality had snapped. His closest friend had betrayed him and for what? Slaves? There was only one way to deal with this in his mind. Jefferson begged Robespierre to reconsider for the sake of their friendship all the way to the Mall. Upon reaching the Mall, which was adorned with a number of spikes with the bodies of traitors. On a cold morning in late November, Thomas Jefferson gave a final speech to the American people begging forgiveness for having unleashed a madman more cruel than King George III. He was promptly impaled and left to bleed out. For the first time since the practice began, the mob did not cheer. They instead watched in horror as another founding father was brutally executed. This combined with the extreme anti-clericalism had left many alienated and fearful. Yet still, many worshipped Robespierre or at least feared the Legions of Liberty. Robespierre’s madness had just begun.
Apotheosis, noun- the highest point or culmination of something; deification
After Jefferson’s betrayal, Robespierre’s already extreme paranoia only got worse. There was no longer a single person he could trust as he felt that everyone was out to betray or sabotage him. His grip on reality shattered, he constructed an elaborate plan to maintain his grasp on the country and regain the loyalty that he seemed to be losing. His first step was moving out of Washington, which he was convinced was a den of traitors and reactionaries. He set up shop so to speak in Philadelphia, PA on December 1. After leaving Washington, many residents noted the terror they felt about the sheer number of impaled bodies on constant display. On December 24, 1806 Maximilian Robespierre outlawed all forms of worship bar one which was now the official state religion: the Cult of Liberty. On December 25 he proclaimed himself a god. This killed his popular support. Unfortunately he still held sway in enough of the country thanks to the Legions of Liberty to increase the number of those executed. The period of December 25 1806-July 4 1807 is considered to be the most violent period of the Great Terror. Robespierre would state
“If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the republic and nation.”
His policies of inducing fear to keep the angered populace in line generally speaking, backfired. Across the country the same people that once rioted in favor of Robespierre now rioted against him. Pro-Robespierre leaders were slaughtered in their beds. Entire cities fell to anti-Robespierrist forces. The entire American South had fallen under control of the once disgraced Attorney General and Federalist ex-Governor of Virginia Edmund Randolph. Once in disgrace over his utter failure as Secretary of State in the Washington years, Randolph had managed to return to prominence once more as a major opponent of Robespierre. In the chaos of the Terror, Randolph had managed to rise like a Phoenix and become the de facto leader of resistance to Robespierre in the south. Quickly a large militia was constructed consisting of men from Georgia, both Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia with future Dictator Andrew Jackson at it’s head alongside Randolph. Further north of Philadelphia, Alexander Hamilton had returned from exile and set about constructing a large regional militia from New England. Soon two armies were marching on Philadelphia to depose a mad tyrant.
Records indicate that Robespierre was not truly aware of the situation until word spread of Randolph’s men capturing Washington. A sense of impending doom sent Robespierre into despair. The number of killings dramatically increased in Philadelphia. Proclamations from the “God of Enlightenment Robespierre” focused increasingly on purity and the need to wash away the old order and usher in a truly new vision of the future. On July 4, 1807, Randolph’s men entered the city of Philadelphia after having slaughtered the nearest Legion of Liberty. Randolph’s forces found Robespierre in Independence Hall screaming at subordinates to save him and the city. Upon being dragged out of the building by Randolph’s men, he screamed a now infamous phrase, one that would haunt subsequent American Regimes and successor states.
“I am a god! How can you kill a god?”
Robespierre screamed these words all the way to the nearest stake open stake. Randolph ordered Robespierre to meet the same fate that his rivals had: impalement. On July 4, 1807 the tyrant Robespierre was dead. The world would never be the same.
In spite of what seemed to be a broad post-Robespierre consensus made by Hamilton and Randolph in the 1811 Constitutional Convention, America would never heal from Robespierre. In spite of the Imperial States of America existing in some form (either democratic or not) until the modern day, the specter of Robespierre haunts the whole continent. Whether it is through Legion terror attacks and sleeper cells, regionalism ripping the Imperial States apart every so often, the extreme militarism of the Jackson years ensuring that America could only be a war loving society, or as foreign observers comment “the pendulum of American society always swings back and forth between divided and chaotic democratic government and strong authoritarian rule that sends the continent into chaos and despair.”