Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 10.djvu/663

 THlRTY—THIRD CONGRESS. Sess. H. C11. 175. 1855. 643 Washington may together elect five competent persons; and the board of aldermen and council of Georgetown may elect two competent persons; and the levy court of the county of Washington may elect one competent person; which persons together shall compose a board, to consider, at convenient seasons, the provisions of said code, as it may be prepared; and any three of said persons shall constitute a quorum of said board; and the said code, or such provisions thereof as may be Code to become approved by a majority of said board, shall be adopted, and become the ¤· l¤Wif¤d°P¤>d· law of said District, as hereinafter provided. And it shall be the duty of the said persons who may be appointed to codify the said laws, to attend, and, also, the said Attorney·General may attend the meetings of said board, to explain the several provisions of the said code. And when the said code, and the provisions thereof, shall have been adopted by the said board, or by a majority thereof, they shall certify the same to the President of the United States, who shall thereupon cause it to be published in a neat and convenient form, and to be substantially bound; and he shall cause a sufficient number of volumes of said code to be printed and bound as may be necessary for the amplest distribution of Distribution. the same among the people of said District, and for the preservation of said code ; and a copy thereof shall be furnished to every justice of the peace, and every judge, to each court, to each clerk of said court, to each coroner, to said levy court, to each public school, to each public library, to each public department of government, and to the mayors and each of the councils of Wasliington and Georgetown, to be by them kept and carefully preserved, and transferred to their several successors in office. And the said code, so deposited with said clerks of courts and justices of the peace, shall at all times be open in their several offices, for the inspection and information of the people of said District, and others who may desire to consult the same. And when the said code shall be printed and distributed, the President of the United States shall, by his proclamation, appoint a time and places in the said District for taking the sense of the citizens thereof, for or against the adoption of the said code; and _V<>f¤ Of <=i§iZ6¤?_ he shall cause judges to be selected who shall preside at such election, 2%,;); m°pu°“ ° and he shall provide and proclaim the mode and rules of conducting the same, provided every free white male citizen of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, who has resided in the said District for one year next preceding said election, shall be permitted to vote thereat; and the result of said election shall be reported to the said President, and the same, with the said code, be by him reported to Congress, and when ratided and approved by the same, he shall, by his proclamation, declare it to be in force, from the day of the date thereof, as the law of the said District of Columbia; and the same, when so proclaimed, shall thereafter be, and remain as such, without any further act or proceedings to that effect, until altered or repealed by the Congress of the United States. And the persons who may compose said board, or such of them as may act on the same, shall be paid out of the treasury of the United States a reasonable compensation for their services, according to the time employed by them respectively upon the same: Provided, That the said code shall be reported to Congress on or before the first Monday in December, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven. Approved, March 3, 1855. CHAP. CLXXV.—An Act making Appropriations for the Civil and Diplomatic Ex- March 8, 1855. penses of Government, for the gear ending the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and ---·---—---— ji_)7y—si1·, and _/or other Purposes. Be it enacted bg the Senate and House of Representatives of the United Stdtesof America in Congress assembled, That the following sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the treasury