United States Statutes at Large

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The United States Statutes at Large (often called Stat. or Statutes at Large) is the official record of Acts of Congress and concurrent resolutions passed by Congress. Each law is first published as a slip law (public or private). After a session ends, all the laws from that session are compiled into bound “session laws” called the Statutes at Large, listed in the order they were enacted.

Key points:
- The Statutes at Large is part of a three-step process: slip laws → session laws (Statutes at Large) → codification in the United States Code.
- Public and private laws are numbered in chronological order. Large parts of public laws are later added to the US Code. If there’s a conflict between the Statutes at Large and a Code provision that isn’t positive law, the Statutes at Large text prevails.
- Publication began in 1845 by Little, Brown and Company. Editors included Richard Peters, George Minot, and George P. Sanger. In 1874, the Government Printing Office took over publication.
- Laws directing publication were issued in 1947 and 1950, directing the Secretary of State and then the Administrator of General Services to compile and publish the Statutes at Large. Since 1985, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) within the National Archives has published it.
- Treaties and other international agreements approved by the Senate were included in the Statutes at Large through 1948; since then they appear in United States Treaties and Other International Agreements (USTIA).
- The volume also includes important texts such as the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and amendments, treaties, presidential proclamations, and treaties with Native American nations and other countries.
- Very long acts can appear as separate appendix volumes (for example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 appeared as 68A Stat. 3).

In short, the Statutes at Large is the official, chronological record of federal laws as they were enacted, serving as the source from which the United States Code is built.