|
Printer Friendly
Annals of Congress
The Annals of Congress, formally
known as The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States,
cover the 1st Congress through the first session of the 18th Congress, from
1789 to 1824. The Annals were not published contemporaneously, but were
compiled between 1834 and 1856, using the best records available, primarily
newspaper accounts. Speeches are paraphrased rather than given verbatim, but
the record of debate is nonetheless fuller than that available from the
House Journal and
Senate Journal
The Congressional Globe
The Congressional Globe, commonly
referred to as the Globe, contains the debates of Congress from the 23rd
Congress, 1st Session through the 42nd Congress (1833-73). There are 46 volumes
in the series, printed as 110 books. The volume-numbering scheme is not
consistent throughout the entire series, and for that reason citations to the
Globe should refer to the Congress and session number. There are separate
indexes for the Senate and House proceedings for each session of Congress. The
indexes often appear in the front of the book and may be repeated in each part.
The Globe is the third of the four series of publications containing the
debates of Congress. The first five volumes of the Globe (23rd Congress, 1st
Session through 25th Congress, 1st Session, 1833-37) overlap with the Register
of Debates. Initially the Globe contained a "condensed report" or abstract
rather than a verbatim report of Congress's debates and proceedings. With the
32nd Congress (1851), however, the Globe began to provide something approaching
verbatim transcription. The contents of the appendix of each Globe volume vary
from Congress to Congress, but appendices typically contain presidential
messages, reports of the heads of departments and cabinet officers, texts of
laws, and statements of appropriations. Speeches not indexed or referenced on
the pages reprinting the debates also appear in the appendix. Each appendix has
an index. The Globe was issued by a commercial printer, Blair and Rives of
Washington, D.C. The copies were purchased for use by the government and were
thus considered government publications.
Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the
official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress.
It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Wirtz Labor Library has
copies of the Congressional Record beginning with Volume 1 (1873). Since March
of 1985 the fulltext of the Congressional Record can be found electronically on
both WESTLAW and LEXIS.
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption
of the Federal Constitution
The Debates in the Several State
Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution were compiled by
Jonathan Elliot in the mid-nineteenth century. They stand today as the best
source for materials for the period between the closing of the Constitutional
Convention in September 1787 and the opening of the first Federal Congress in
March 1789. On September 17, 1787, the Continental Congress accepted the
recommendation of the Constitutional Convention and agreed to distribute the
proposed constitution to the states; each state was then to elect delegates to
a state convention to approve or disapprove the new constitution. The
Constitution would take effect upon ratification by the conventions of nine of
the thirteen states.
Journals of the Continental Congress The First Continental
Congress met from September 5 to October 26, 1774. The Second Continental
Congress ran from May 10, 1775, to March 2, 1789. The Journals of the
Continental Congress are the records of the daily proceedings of the Congress
as kept by the office of its secretary, Charles Thomson. The Journals were
printed contemporaneously in different editions and in several subsequent
reprint editions. None of these, however, include the "Secret Journals,"
confidential sections of the records, which were not published until 1821. The
edition presented here is the complete one published by the Library of Congress
from 1904-1937, based on the manuscript Journals and other manuscript records
of theContinental Congress in the Manuscript Division of the Library of
Congress.
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
One of
the great scholarly efforts of the early twentieth century was Max Farrand's
gathering of the documentary records of the Constitutional Convention.
Published in 1911, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 contained the
materials necessary for a study of the workings of the Constitutional
Convention. As Farrand's introduction describes, at the close of the convention
the secretary, William Johnson, delivered all the papers to the president of
the convention, George Washington, who turned the papers over to the Department
of State in 1796. In 1818 Congress ordered that the records be printed, which
was done under the supervision of the secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, in
1819. Farrand's Records remains the single best source for discussions of the
Constitutional Convention. The notes taken at the time by James Madison and
later revised by him form the largest single block of material after the
official proceedings, but the collection includes notes and letters by many
other participants, as well as the various constitutional plans proposed during
the convention.
Register of Debates
The Register of Debates is a
record of the congressional debates of the 18th Congress, 2nd session through
the 25th Congress, 1st session (1824-37). It is the second of the four series
of publications containing the debates of Congress. There are fourteen numbered
volumes in the Register of Debates series. Each volume covers a session but is
arbitrarily divided into parts, resulting in a total of twenty-nine books in
the series. Each volume contains a separate index for Senate and House debates
and for Senate and House speakers in the debates. These indexes are repeated at
the end of each printed part. More complete access to the information may be
obtained indirectly by using the indexes of the House and Senate Journals
during the relevant session of Congress, which provide the dates on which
action was taken. These dates can then be consulted in the Register of Debates.
The last volume in each session of Congress contains Presidential messages,
select committee reports, and the text of laws. Each page has two columns, and
each column is numbered. The Register of Debates is not a verbatim account of
the proceedings, but rather a summary of the "leading debates and incidents" of
the session. It was published contemporaneously with the proceedings by a
commercial printer, Gales and Seaton of Washington, D.C. The copies were
purchased for the use of the government and were thus considered government
publications. The Register of Debates and its successor, The Congressional
Globe, overlapped publication for a brief period of time (23rd Congress, 1st
Session through 25th Congress, 1st session; 1833-1837).
| |
|
