The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Index is updated daily online and published monthly. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code authorizes publication of the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record consists of four sections: the House section, the Senate section, the Extensions of Remarks, and, since the 1940s, the Daily Digest.[ citation needed ] At the back of each daily issue is the Daily Digest, which summarizes the day's floor and committee activities and serves as a table of contents for each issue. The House and Senate sections contain proceedings for the separate chambers of Congress.
A section of the Congressional Record titled Extensions of Remarks contains speeches, tributes and other extraneous words that were not uttered during open proceedings of the full Senate or of the full House of Representatives. Witnesses in committee hearings are often asked to submit their complete testimony "for the record" and only deliver a summary of it in person. The full statement will then appear in a printed volume of the hearing identified as "Statements for the Record". In years past, this particular section of the Congressional Record was called the "Appendix". [1] While members of either body may insert material into Extensions of Remarks, Senators rarely do so.[ citation needed ] The overwhelming majority of what is found there is entered at the request of Members of the House of Representatives. From a legal standpoint, most materials in the Congressional Record are classified as secondary authority, as part of a statute's legislative history.[ citation needed ]
By custom and rules of each house, members also frequently "revise and extend" their remarks made on the floor before the debates are published in the Congressional Record. Therefore, for many years, speeches that were not delivered in Congress appeared in the Congressional Record, including in the sections purporting to be verbatim reports of debates. [2] In recent years, however, these revised remarks have been preceded by a "bullet" symbol or, more recently and currently, printed in a typeface discernibly different from that used to report words spoken by members.
The Congressional Record is publicly available for records before 1875 via the Library of Congress' American Memory Century of Lawmaking website, [3] and since 1989 via Congress.gov (which replaced the THOMAS database in 2016). [4] Thanks to a partnership between GPO and the Library of Congress, digital versions of the bound editions are available on govinfo.gov for 1873 to 2001 (Volumes 1-147) and 2005 to 2015 (Volumes 151-161). [5] Govinfo.gov also provides access to digital versions of the daily edition from 1994 (Volume 140) to the present. [6]
In early United States history, there was no record of Congressional debates. The contemporary British Parliament from which Congress drew its tradition was a highly secretive body, and publishing parliamentary proceedings in Britain did not become legal until 1771. [7] The Constitution, in Article I, Section 5, requires Congress to keep a journal of its proceedings, but both the United States Senate Journal and the Senate Journal include only a bare record of actions and votes rather than records of debates. [8] In the first twenty years, Congress made frequent use of secret sessions. Beginning with the War of 1812, public sessions became commonplace. [7]
In the early 1800s, political reporting was dominated by National Intelligencer, the first newspaper of Washington, D.C. Newspapers with reporters in the chamber regularly published floor statements in their reports. Joseph Gales and William Seaton, the editors of the Intelligencer, became regular fixtures in the House and Senate Chambers. [9]
In 1824, Gales and Seaton began publishing the Register of Debates, the first series of publications containing congressional debates. The Register of Debates contains summaries of "leading debates and incidents" of the period rather than a verbatim debate transcript. [10] From 1834 to 1856, Gale and Seaton retroactively compiled the Annals of Congress, covering congressional debates from 1789 to 1824 using primarily newspaper accounts. [11]
When Andrew Jackson's Democrats came into power in congress around 1830, Gales and Seaton's popularity declined due to their differing views with the administration. The new printing partnership of Francis Preston Blair and John Cook Rives founded the Congressional Globe in 1833 with President Jackson's support. In 1837, Register of Debates ceased publication. [9]
In 1851, the Congressional Globe began publishing near-verbatim reports of debates thanks to the publication's heavy use of stenographers. [12] [9]
The Congressional Record was first published in 1873. [3]
The Arkansas Territory was a territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1819, to June 15, 1836, when the final extent of Arkansas Territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Arkansas. Arkansas Post was the first territorial capital (1819–1821) and Little Rock was the second (1821–1836).
The United States National Cemetery System is a system of 164 cemeteries in the United States and its territories. The authority to create military burial places came during the American Civil War, in an act passed by the U.S. Congress on July 17, 1862. By the end of 1862, 12 national cemeteries had been established, including two of the nation's most iconic military cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery and Gettysburg National Cemetery.
The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Bioguide) is a biographical dictionary of all present and former members of the United States Congress and its predecessor, the Continental Congress. Also included are Delegates from territories and the District of Columbia and Resident Commissioners from the Philippines and Puerto Rico.
James Wilson Grimes was an American politician, serving as the third Governor of Iowa and a United States Senator from Iowa.
The clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an officer of the United States House of Representatives, whose primary duty is to act as the chief record-keeper for the House.
John Brooks Henderson was a United States senator from Missouri and a co-author of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For his role in the investigation of the Whiskey Ring, he was considered the first special prosecutor.
George Rogers Clark Floyd was an American politician and businessman. He served as the Secretary of the Wisconsin Territory from 1843 to 1846, and served in the West Virginia House of Delegates from 1872 to 1873.
John Hanna was a United States Representative and United States Attorney from Indiana.
Joseph Gales Jr. was an American journalist and the ninth mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1827 to 1830. He was the only Mayor born outside the United States or the American colonies.
The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser was a newspaper published in Washington, D.C., from October 30, 1800 until 1870. It was the first newspaper published in the District, which was founded in 1790. It was originally a Tri-weekly publication. It covered early debates of the United States Congress. The paper had a strong bias to Republicans and Thomas Jefferson.
The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was a federal enactment of the United States Congress that was signed into law on July 1, 1862, by President Abraham Lincoln. Sponsored by Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont, the act banned bigamy in federal territories such as Utah and limited church and non-profit ownership in any territory of the United States to $50,000.
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was initiated on February 24, 1868, when the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The alleged high crimes and misdemeanors were afterwards specified in eleven articles of impeachment adopted by the House on March 2 and 3, 1868. The primary charge against Johnson was that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act. Specifically, that he had acted to remove from office Edwin Stanton and to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas as secretary of war ad interim. The Tenure of Office had been passed by Congress in March 1867 over Johnson's veto with the primary intent of protecting Stanton from being fired without the Senate's consent. Stanton often sided with the Radical Republican faction and did not have a good relationship with Johnson.
Bethuel Middleton Kitchen was a nineteenth-century politician from Virginia and West Virginia.
An Act further to protect the commerce of the United States, is an act of Congress approved July 9, 1798, authorizing the President of the United States to use military force in the Quasi-War with France.
The United States Senate Journal is a written record of proceedings within the United States Senate in accordance with Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution.
Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.
John Hart was an American surgeon originally from Ipswich, Massachusetts who served as a Regimental Surgeon during the American Revolution. Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he left his medical practice in Georgetown Maine to serve his newly forming country in his home state of Massachusetts.
An Act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen was passed by the 5th Congress. It was signed by President John Adams on July 16, 1798. The Act authorized the deduction of twenty cents per month from the wages of seamen, for the sole purpose of funding medical care for sick and disabled seamen, as well as building additional hospitals for the treatment of seamen. While some argue this is the first Federal individual mandate levied on individuals for health insurance, preceding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), passed in early 2010, by nearly 212 years; others would point to the fact that this law solely regulated employers engaged in interstate and foreign commerce, and was enacted as a matter of national security.
The second impeachment inquiry against Andrew Johnson was an impeachment inquiry against United States President Andrew Johnson. It followed a previous inquiry in 1867. The second inquiry, unlike the first, was run by the House Select Committee on Reconstruction. The second inquiry ran from its authorization on January 27, 1868, until the House Select Committee on Reconstruction reported to Congress on February 22, 1868.
Andrew Johnson became the first president of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives on February 24, 1868 after he acted to dismiss Edwin Stanton as secretary of war in disregard for the Tenure of Office Act.