The Defense of Massachussets: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Defense of Massachussets, credited to Anson Burlingame, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Defense of Massachussets by Anson Burlingame. Read in English by John Greenman. In a 1856 Congressional speech, Massachusetts Representative Anson Burlingame projected the first public indication that the North was willing to fight for the preservation of the U.S. Constitution and the abolition of slavery. As historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her Letters from an American column …: "Forgotten now, Burlingame’s speech was once widely considered one of the most important speeches in American history. It marked the moment when northerners shocked southern leaders by calling them out for trying to destroy democracy. Northerners rallied to Burlingame’s call, and to the new Republican Party he was helping to build, because he had shown it would stand up for their rights." (Summary by John Greenman & Heather Cox Richardson, with permission)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Defense of Massachussets
• Author credits: Anson Burlingame
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 2
• Listed recording duration: 58:34

Catalogue topics

• slavery
• civil war
• defense of massachussets
• burlingame
• first call for fighting for abolishing slavery
• abolition

Track guide

1. 00 - Prefatory — 3:06
2. 01 - Speech by Anson Burlingame — 55:28

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.