The ''United States Statutes at Large'', commonly referred to as the ''Statutes at Large'' and abbreviated Stat., are an official record of Acts of Congress and concurrent resolutions passed by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washi ...

. Each act and resolution of Congress is originally published as a

slip law In the United States, a slip law is an individual Act of Congress which is either a public law (Pub.L.) or a private law (Pvt.L.). They are part of a three-part model for publication of federal statutes consisting of slip laws, session laws, and ...

, which is classified as either

public law Public law is the part of law that governs relations between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that are of direct ...

(abbreviated Pub.L.) or

private law Private law is that part of a civil law legal system which is part of the '' jus commune'' that involves relationships between individuals, such as the law of contracts and torts (as it is called in the common law), and the law of obligations (a ...

(Pvt.L.), and designated and numbered accordingly. At the end of a Congressional session, the statutes enacted during that session are compiled into bound books, known as "session law" publications. The session law publication for U.S. Federal statutes is called the ''United States Statutes at Large''. In that publication, the public laws and private laws are numbered and organized in chronological order. U.S. Federal statutes are published in a three-part process, consisting of slip laws, session laws (''Statutes at Large''), and codification (''

United States Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...

'').

Codification

Large portions of public laws are enacted as amendments to the

. Once enacted into law, an Act will be published in the ''Statutes at Large'' and will add to, modify, or delete some part of the United States Code. Provisions of a public law that contain only enacting clauses, effective dates, and similar matters are not generally codified. Private laws also are not generally codified. Some portions of the United States Code have been enacted as

positive law Positive laws ( la, links=no, ius positum) are human-made laws that oblige or specify an action. Positive law also describes the establishment of specific rights for an individual or group. Etymologically, the name derives from the verb ''to posit ...

and other portions have not been so enacted. In case of a conflict between the text of the ''Statutes at Large'' and the text of a provision of the United States Code that has not been enacted as positive law, the text of the ''Statutes at Large'' takes precedence.See generally .

History

Publication of the ''United States Statutes at Large'' began in 1845 by the private firm of Little, Brown and Company under authority of a joint resolution of Congress. During Little, Brown and Company's time as publisher, Richard Peters (Volumes 1–8), George Minot (Volumes 9–11), and

George P. Sanger George Partridge Sanger (November 27, 1819 – July 3, 1890) was an American lawyer, editor, judge, and businessman who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1873 to 1886 and was the first president of the J ...

(Volumes 11–17) served as editors. In 1874, Congress transferred the authority to publish the ''Statutes at Large'' to the Government Printing Office under the direction of the Secretary of State. , 61 Stat. 633, was enacted July 30, 1947 and directed the Secretary of State to compile, edit, index, and publish the ''Statutes at Large''. , 64 Stat. 980, was enacted September 23, 1950 and directed the Administrator of General Services to compile, edit, index, and publish the ''Statutes at Large''. Since 1985 the ''Statutes at Large'' have been prepared and published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the

National Archives and Records Administration The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

(NARA). Until 1948, all treaties and international agreements approved by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and ...

were also published in the set, but these now appear in a publication titled United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, abbreviated U.S.T. In addition, the ''Statutes at Large'' includes the text of the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of ...

, Articles of Confederation, the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princip ...

, amendments to the Constitution, treaties with Native American nations and foreign nations, and presidential proclamations. Sometimes very large or long Acts of Congress are published as their own "appendix" volume of the ''Statutes at Large''. For example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was published as volume 68A of the ''Statutes at Large'' ().

Notes

References

External links

Volumes 1 to 64 (1789–1951) of the ''Statutes at Large''
at the Library of Congress
Volume 65 ''et seq.'' (1951–2016) of the ''Statutes at Large''
at Govinfo (U.S. Government Publishing Office)

made available by the Library of Congress American Memory collections
Volumes 1 to 64 (1789–1951) of the ''Statutes at Large''
made available by th
Congressional Data Coalition
vi
LEGISWORKS.org
** Sortable by Bills Enacted into Laws, Concurrent Resolutions, Popular Names, Presidential Proclamations, or Public Laws.

from the Government Printing Office, in slip law format with Statutes at Large page references
Early United States Statutes
includes Volumes 1 to 44 (1789–1927) of the ''Statutes at Large'' in DjVu and

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

format, along with rudimentary OCR of the text.
United States Statutes and the United States Code: Historical Outlines, Notes, Lists, Tables, and Sources
from the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC
Second Edition of the Revised Statutes of the United States (1878)
{{Authority control

Statutes at Large ''Statutes at Large'' is the name given to published collections or series of legislative Acts in a number of jurisdictions. The expression "statutes at large" was first used in the edition of Barker published in 1587. England and Great Britain ...

*Statutes at Large Legal research

Codification

History

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links