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 Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

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

(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'').

Codification

Large portions of public laws are enacted as amendments to the United States Code. 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 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 Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

under authority of a

joint resolution of Congress In the United States Congress, a joint resolution is a legislative measure that requires passage by the Senate and the House of Representatives and is presented to the President for their approval or disapproval. Generally, there is no legal dif ...

. 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 The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. gover ...

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 The Office of the Federal Register is an office of the United States government within the National Archives and Records Administration. The Office publishes the ''Federal Register'', ''Code of Federal Regulations'', ''Public Papers of the Presid ...

(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 ...

(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 po ...

were also published in the set, but these now appear in a publication titled

United States Treaties and Other International Agreements United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...

, abbreviated U.S.T. In addition, the ''Statutes at Large'' includes the text of the Declaration of Independence,

Articles of Confederation The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 Colonies of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate (between July 1776 and November 1777) by ...

, 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 pr ...

, 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 DjVu ( , like French " déjà vu") is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, indexed color images, and photographs. It uses technologies such as im ...

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