Statutes at Large

Within United States Materials, the Statutes at Large allows you to browse:

• Public Laws, from the first Congress in 1789 to the present

• Private Laws

• Proclamations

• Concurrent Resolutions

• Treaties with Foreign Nations, and

• Treaties with Indian Tribes.  

Select one of the above data sets to see a menu of Congresses.  Then select a Congress to see a list of headings describing all the laws from that Congress.  

1. Modifying the default display – Use the drop-down menus above the document list to change the Sort By or the Records Per Page, or to show results in ascending or descending order.  

2. Selecting a Document – From the list of headings, select a link to view the document's full text, Impact result, History, or the scanned original in PDF form.

3. Browsing by popular name – Each Public Law has one or more “short title” or popular name, “The Patriot Act” for example.  You can browse Statutes at Large by popular name; each name listed links to the appropriate document.

4. Browsing by Volume – The Statutes At Large are published in bound volumes. You can browse these: selecting a volume number displays links to the documents bound in that volume, organized by type.