Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 1.djvu/15

Rh Letter from Henry D. Gilpin, Esq., of Pennsylvania, late Attorney General. ", December 6, 1843. ": I have read your plan for publishing the Statutes of the United States at large. I am extremely glad that you have undertaken this most useful and necessary work. No person who has had frequent occasion to examine and compare the various enactments of Congress will hesitate to say that such a publication has become indispensable. The plan you have selected seems to me to be such as will give the work very great value, both for authority and reference."

Letter from B. F. Butler, Esq., late Attorney General. ", January 5, 1844. ": I thank you for your prospectus of your proposed edition of the Statutes of the United States at large. Such a work is much needed by all judicial and other officers connected with the Federal Government, by many of the functionaries under the State Governments, and by the legal profession generally. Your plan appears to me to contain all the requisites of such a publication, and, if executed in the manner and published in the form proposed, will deserve, and I trust receive, the patronage of the government as well as of the public."

Letter from Judges Pettit and Jones, Judges of the District Court of Philadelphia County. ", December 8, 1843. ": We have read the prospectus of your permanent and complete edition of the Laws of the United States. The plan seems to be well conceived and judiciously marked out, and, if successfully executed, cannot fail to produce a most valuable edition of our national statutes at large, arranged chronologically.

"The foot notes and marginal references, with a view to accurate historical search concerning the legislation of Congress, constitute an important feature of the design, and will require industry, and tact, and experience, which we know you to possess."

Letter from William M. Meredith, Esq., of Philadelphia. ", December 18, 1843. ": I have read the prospectus of the Statutes of the United States at large, which you were good enough to send me, and am glad to find you have undertaken a work, which, edited with your acknowledged ability, must be highly useful. The best existing editions of the acts of Congress are on plans the defects of which are very obvious, and will be fully supplied in your publication."

Letter from William B. Reed, Esq., of Philadelphia. ", December 11, 1843. ": I thank you for the prospectus of the Statutes at large. It seems to me that such an undertaking will command not only the professional approbation which you desire, but, what is at least of equal value, that of the student of the political and social history of the country. The legislation of Congress, whether it be obsolete or temporary in its character, or even expressly abrogated, is an important part of the history of the country."

Letter from Daniel Lord, Jr., Esq., New York. ', November 30, 1843. ": I have your prospectus of an edition of the Laws. I know of no work more called for. Judge Story’s edition of the Laws is now the only one accessible to the profession, and may perhaps suffice for the text of public acts. But, in the matter of the private acts, no access can be had except to the originally published acts, which are not to be found except as rarities. The courts, too, in their reference to the citation of the United States laws, sometimes refer to the act by its date and title, and sometimes to the session pamphlet, sometimes to volumes accidentally bound up, and sometimes to Judge Story’s. The citations by counsel are equally various, and great difficulty and confusion result.

"The annotations, giving a history of the laws, and a series of the adjudications upon them, seem to me a matter of so great convenience as almost to amount to a necessity.

"Your whole enterprise seems to me to be called for by the greatest need, and to be one really of national benefit. I hope it will receive every public and private patronage."