Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

EL Plumb

SUPPLEMENT

TO THE

REVISED STATUTES

OF THE

UNITED STATES,

EMBRACING THE STATUTES, GENERAL AND PERMANENT IN THEIR NATURE, PASSED
AFTER THE REVISED STATUTES; WITH REFERENCES CONNECTING PRO-
VISIONS ON THE SAME SUBJECT, EXPLANATORY NOTES, CITATIONS

OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS, AND A GENERAL INDEX.

VOLUME
I.

LEGISLATION OF

1874-1881,

THE 43D, 44TH, 45TH, AND 46TH CONGRESSES.

PREPARED AND EDITED BY

WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON,

ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

WASHINGTON:

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.

1881.

JOINT RESOLUTION

TO PROVIDE FOR THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF A

SUPPLEMENT TO THE REVISED STATUTES.

[See page 582.]

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

That the SUPPLEMENT TO THE REVISED STATUTES, be stereotyped at the Government Printing Office; and the index and plates thereof and all right and title therein and thereto shall be in and fully belong to the government for its exclusive use and benefit.

That * copies be printed, bound, and distributed as provided for the distribution of the Revised Statutes, * and such additional copies, on the order of the Secretary of State, as may be necessary from time to time, to be kept for sale in the same manner and on like terms as the Revised Statutes are required to be kept for sale, and to supply deficiencies and offices newly created; *

The publication herein authorized shall be taken to be prima facie evidence of the laws therein contained in all the courts of the United States and of the several States and Territories therein;

But shall not preclude reference to, nor control, in case of any discrepancy, the effect of any original act as passed by Congress:

Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to change or alter any existing law.

Approved, June 7, 1880.

ii

205461

#LOBD [IBKVBA

PREFACE.

The purpose and character of this work cannot better be expressed than in the language of the report of the Committee of the Senate on the Revision of the Laws of the Forty-fifth Congress, composed of Senators STANLEY MATTHEWS of Ohio, David DAVIS of Illinois, WILLIAM A. WALLACE of Pennsylvania, and FRANCIS KERNAN of of New York, recommending its adoption and publication by Congress, from which the following extracts are made:

The Committee on the Revision of the Laws, who were instructed, by order of the Senate of the 27th of January last past, to inquire into the expediency of making provision for publishing a revision of the statutes of the United States adopted since the date of the existing revision, have considered the subject, and respectfully submit the following report:

The Revised Statutes embrace the laws, general and permanent in their nature, in force December 1, 1873, but were not enacted until June 22, 1874, and were not printed and given to the public until 1875.

In the mean time legislation had been going on, many of the laws incorporated therein had been repealed, altered, or amended, and when the volume came into general use it was two years behind the enactments of Congress.

In March, 1877, an act was passed for the publication of a second edition, but this was not completed until the latter part of the year 1878, and includes only the specific amendments, adding to or striking out sections or parts of sections, which were passed by the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses, with references to some other acts.

It does not contain the great mass of general laws enacted during the past six years, and it has no references whatever to the legislation of the Forty-fifth Congress, so that the Revised Statutes, even with the second edition, do little more than bring the laws down to December 1, 1873, and at the end of the present Congress they will be six years in arrears [now increased to eight years].

At no other period of time of equal length has general legislation been more extensive nor more difficult to trace out, much of it being included in annual appropriation acts, into which it has become a not infrequent practice to introduce provisions of permanent and general laws.

Moreover, the indexes to the Statutes at Large, which at the end of the present session will be in three [now four] volumes since the Revised Statutes, embrace all the laws, general, special, and private, as well as treaties, proclamations, &c., combined, rendering it a difficult and uncertain task to ascertain exactly what alterations have been made to the general laws.

It is obvious that some provision should be made for the publication and distribution of the permanent and general statutes in a convenient form brought down to as late date as possible and separated from the acts which are temporary in their nature or of no general and permanent interest.

The committee have examined a work prepared by Judge William A. Richardson, and now ready for the press, with the exception of the laws of the present session, which are to be added thereto. Its title indicates its contents.

The numerous notes supplement the statutes wherever references to other acts or to facts are necessary to a clear understanding of the effect of the enactments.

The marginal references connect together the acts on the same subject, and by means thereof the reader is at once directed to all the legislation on the subject-matter of any law which he is examining.

A table is added of the sections of the Revised Statutes repealed, altered, or affected by subsequent legislation, with references to the pages where such changes may be

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »