Thoughts on the Death Penalty: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Thoughts on the Death Penalty, credited to Charles C. Burleigh, 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 Thoughts on the Death Penalty by Charles C. Burleigh. Read in English by volunteer readers. This 1845 publication, written by a prominent reformer of the day, argues against capital punishment from several perspectives, including historical, philosophical and biblical arguments. It is broken into 3 chapters: Expediency, Justice, and Sacred Scriptures (although it has Scripture references peppered throughout). Burleigh frequently references and argues against George B. Cheever, a prominent death penalty advocate of the time. "If it shall thus be the means of helping on in a humble way the progress of that humane reform whose principles it advocates; and of hastening, however little, the coming of that time, when the penal statutes of a "christian" and "civilized people," shall have ceased to be written in blood, I shall be richly repaid for the time and labor spent upon this task." (Summary by TriciaG and from the preface)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Thoughts on the Death Penalty
• Author credits: Charles C. Burleigh
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 17
• Listed recording duration: 6:22:22

Catalogue topics

• Crime
• ethics
• punishment
• justice
• death penalty

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface — 2:40
2. 01 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 1 — 20:00
3. 02 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 2 — 26:13
4. 03 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 3 — 20:46
5. 04 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 4 — 25:52
6. 05 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 5 — 23:55
7. 06 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 6 — 21:35
8. 07 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 7 — 34:30
9. 08 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 8 — 17:22
10. 09 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 9 — 20:53
11. 10 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 10 — 38:21
12. 11 - Ch 1: Expediency, Part 11 — 29:20
13. 12 - Ch 2: Justice, Part 1 — 22:21
14. 13 - Ch 2: Justice, Part 2 — 14:36
15. 14 - Ch 3: Sacred Scriptures, Part 1 — 19:47
16. 15 - Ch 3: Sacred Scriptures, Part 2 — 23:29
17. 16 - Ch 3: Sacred Scriptures, Part 3 — 20:42

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.