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 An act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called private laws), or to the general public ( public laws). For a bill to become an act, the text must pass through both hous ...

and

concurrent resolution A concurrent resolution is a resolution (a legislative measure) adopted by both houses of a bicameral legislature that lacks the force of law (is non-binding) and does not require the approval of the chief executive ( president). Concurrent reso ...

s passed by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

. 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.). Slip laws are published as softcover unbound pamphlets, each with its own individual pagination. They are part of a ...

, which is classified as either

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

(abbreviated Pub.L.) or

private law Private law is that part of a legal system that governs interactions between individual persons. It is distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) and the st ...

(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 ''United States Statutes at Large'' is the name of the session law publication for U.S. Federal statutes. 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 The United States Code (formally The Code of Laws of the United States of America) is the official Codification (law), codification of the general and permanent Law of the United States#Federal law, federal statutes of the United States. It ...

'').

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 () 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''. The concept of 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 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 Emil ...

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 diffe ...

. During Little, Brown and Company's time as publisher, Richard Peters (Volumes 1–8),

George Minot George Richards Minot ( ; December 2, 1885 – February 25, 1950) was an American medical researcher who shared the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George Hoyt Whipple and William P. Murphy for their pioneering work on perniciou ...

(Volumes 9–11), and George P. Sanger (Volumes 11–17) served as editors. In 1874, Congress transferred the authority to publish the ''Statutes at Large'' to the

Government Printing Office The United States Government Publishing Office (USGPO or GPO), formerly the United States Government Printing Office, is an agency of the Legislature, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal gove ...

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. gove ...

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 Presi ...

(OFR) of the

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

(NARA). Until 1948, all

treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

and

international agreement A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

s approved by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

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

United States Treaties and Other International Agreements The United States Treaties and Other International Agreements (UST) contains all treaties and international agreements of the United States since 1950. It is published annually from slip treaties of the Treaties and Other International Acts Series ...

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

Declaration of Independence A declaration 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 the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

Articles of Confederation The Articles of Confederation, officially the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement and early body of law in the Thirteen Colonies, which served as the nation's first Constitution, frame of government during the Ameri ...

, the

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

, amendments to the Constitution, treaties with Native American nations and foreign nations, and

presidential proclamation In the United States, a presidential proclamation is a statement issued by the president of the United States on an issue of public policy. It is a type of presidential directive. Details A presidential proclamation is an instrument that: *s ...

s. 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 The Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (IRC), is the domestic portion of federal statutory tax law in the United States. It is codified in statute as Title 26 of the United States Code. The IRC is organized topically into subtitles and sections, cov ...

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–present) of the ''Statutes at Large''
at Govinfo (U.S. Government Publishing Office)

made available by the Library of Congress American Memory collections * made available by th
Congressional Data Coalition
via ** Sortable by Bills Enacted into Laws, Concurrent Resolutions, Popular Names, Presidential Proclamations, or Public Laws.

from the

, 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 Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

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 ''The 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 Bri ...

*Statutes at Large Legal research

Codification

History

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links