a. Why codes are needed: The Statutes at Large print federal statutes in chronological order as enacted, with no subject arrangement or indication whether a subsequent statute has repealed or amended a prior one: a code meets the need for the current, amended text of statutes in a logical subject order.

b. The first federal code: The United States Revised Statutes of 1873 (published as vol. 18, part I, of the Statutes at Large), which included the substance of all currently effective, generally applicable statutes enacted from 1789 to 1872. When enacted into positive law, the Revised Statutes repealed all the prior statutes on which it was based, making it unnecessary to refer to the Statutes at Large for statutes passed before 1872. The Revised Statutes of 1878 corrected errors in the 1873 edition. Sections in the Revised Statutes are numbered sequentially throughout the compilation (e.g., R.S. sec. 50). To find if a section of the Revised Statutes is in the current United States Code, check Table II of the USC tables volume; to find if a USC section is derived from the Revised Statutes, check the derivation notes contained in parentheses following the section.

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c. The United States Code

(i) What it is: The current subject compilation of permanent federal statutes of general applicability, first published in 1926 and issued in new editions by the government every six years, with cumulative annual supplements between editions. West's United States Code Annotated (USCA) and Lexis/Nexis's United States Code Service (USCS) are privately published versions of the USC containing the same statutes but providing additional research aids and much more current supplementation.

(ii) How it is arranged: Provisions are divided by subject into fifty numbered titles, and sections within each title are numbered consecutively. It is thus necessary to cite both title and section of the USC: e.g., 49 USC sec. 10927 is section 10927 of title 49, dealing with transportation.

(iii) Why section numbers in public laws may differ from those of the same provisions in the USC: The editors of the USC classify provisions according to the USC subject arrangement, renumbering (and sometimes rewording) them to fit into the USC framework. (USCS, unlike the official USC and West's USCA, provides the original wording of statutes, in brackets following the Code version.) On one hand, the derivation notes following USC sections tell from what public law sections the USC provisions derive, and on the other, tables in the USC tables volume (described below) show where public law sections end up in the USC. Shepard's United States Citations, arranged by title and section of the USC, may update the derivation notes at the end of USC by providing citations to more recent statutes amending USC sections.

(iv) Why all sections of a public law do not necessarily appear in the USC: The USC includes only general statutes of permanent force and effect, and therefore excludes such measures as appropriations acts and temporary laws. These are sometimes printed as notes following permanent USC sections.

(v) "Positive law" and "prima facie evidence of the law" in the USC: Statutes constituting "positive law," public laws directly enacted by Congress, are taken by courts as accurate statements of congressional enactments. Statutes constituting only "prima facie evidence of the law" have been edited by code compilers to fit into the USC's format: while courts will accept them as statements of what Congress enacted, if an opposing party can present a more accurate version (the public law printed in the Statutes at Large) courts will follow that version when the meaning varies.

Unlike the Revised Statutes, which were reenacted in their entirety as positive law, the USC was originally only a prima facie restatement of federal statute law, rearranged and compiled by the USC editors from the Revised Statutes and the Statutes at Large. Congress has gradually, title by title, been enacting the USC into positive law and repealing the old statutes from which the USC derived. USC titles enacted into positive law are listed following 1 USC 204 and also appear, with an asterisk, in the list of titles printed at the beginning of each USC volume. Table I of the USC tables volume gives cross references from old to new section numbers for recodified titles.

USC titles enacted into positive law are amended by reference directly to the USC section; those only prima facie evidence of the law are amended by reference to the underlying public law (for instance, an amending act will read "Section 404(e) of the National Housing Act is amended," not "12 USC 1727(e) is amended"). Marginal notes in the amending public law or reference to Table III of the USC tables volume (discussed below) will indicate where the amended provision is codified in the USC. It should be noted, however, that numerous amendments over the years to certain statutes, like the Social Security Act of 1935, can cause problems: the sections of the current act, being an amalgam of many separate enactments, cannot be found in any one place in the USC tables, so that references to its amended provisions cannot readily be tracked into the USC. Here the best bet is to try to find a current text of the Act (a looseleaf service being the best place to look), which may print the current act, as amended in its entirety, and provide references to the location of provisions in the USC.

(vi) USC finding tables for provisions cited by their public law section number or by popular name:

[1] If you know the public law number or Statutes at Large citation: Check Table III of the USC tables volume, updated by Table 2 (classifications table) of the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) or the "Statutes at Large" tables in the United States Code Service Advance Sheets and the "Public Law" tables in the United States Code Annotated pamphlet supplements.

[2] If you know the popular name of the statute: Check Shepard's Acts and Cases by Popular Name or the popular names tables in USC, USCA, or USCS. For very recent statutes, check the USCCAN or USCS advance sheets indexes or popular name tables, or the CCH Congressional Index "Names of Laws Amended/Enacted." All these will provide the public law number of the statute.

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VI. A NOTE ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

The federal Constitution is legislation of a sort: it is the "organic law" setting forth the basic governmental framework of the United States of America. Consideration of the "legislative history" of constitutional provisions has its share of oddities, at least in the eye of scholars of political science or history. Despite the voluminous writings on principles of constitutional interpretation (focusing recently on the concept of the "original intent" of the framers as a guide to constitutional meaning) what practically the Supreme Court does is rather idiosyncratic: it goes to great length to discuss what constitutional provisions meant to the people who wrote them in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, and then proceeds to apply those provisions in ways, and in situations, undreamed of by their framers. The history the Court considers seems to be a sort of security blanket, to be clung to in process of constitution-making through interpretation. What the Court is actually doing is following the advice of Chief Justice Marshall: "Its [the Constitution's] nature, therefore, requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects, be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves" (McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 407 (1819)).

The official, unannotated text of the Constitution is found in the first volume of the USC; unofficial texts, accompanied by voluminous case note, are found in USCA and USCS. Perhaps the most useful version for preliminary research is the excellent one-volume edition prepared by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress: The Constitution of the United States of America; Analysis and Interpretation (1996). Basic sources of the framers' intent are the Federalist Papers (in many editions) and Madison's notes of debates in the constitutional convention, contained, with other documents, in Max Farrand's standard Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Yale Univ. Pr., 1937; supp. 1987). Perhaps the most complete bibliography of the many secondary writings on the Constitution is Kermit L. Hall's Comprehensive Bibliography of American Constitutional and Legal History, 1896-1979; Supplement, 1980-1987 (Kraus, 1984, 1990).

The Cornell Legal Information Institute (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution.overview.html) and the U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library (http://law.house.gov/317.htm) carry the Constitution in searchable text. THOMAS (http://thomas.loc.gov) carries historic background documents, such as the Federalist Papers.

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LAW, POSITIVE. Positive law, as used in opposition to natural law, may be considered in a threefold point of view.

1. The universal voluntary law, or those rules which are presumed to be law, by the uniform practice of nations in general, and by the manifest utility of the rules themselves.

2. The customary law, or that which, from motives of convenience, has, by tacit, but implied agreement, prevailed, not generally indeed among all nations, nor with so permanent a utility as to become a portion of the universal voluntary law, but enough to have acquired a prescriptive obligation among certain states so situated as to be mutually benefited by it. 1 Taunt. 241.

3. The conventional law, or that which is agreed between particular states by express treaty, a law binding on the parties among whom such treaties are in force. 1 Chit. Comm. Law, 28. (Bouviers Law Dictionary 1856 Edition)

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Below are examples of the context in which the term "positive law" can be used.

Like many legal terms; "positive law" appears to have a different meaning depending upon the the context in which the term is used which is dependent upon which system of law is being applied. The same goes for the legal term "due process."

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Positive Law

(a) Those established by men as POLITICAL SUPERIORS to those who are subject to them (sovereignty and subjection). In the aggregate I will call these LAW or POSITIVE LAW - meaning that they exist by position.

Positive Morality

(b) Those not established by men as political superiors, or not in that capacity - e.g. master and servant (rules of professional body). In the aggregate I will call these POSITIVE MORALITY. --- http://online.anu.edu.au/law/pub/edinst/anu/lglthry/Lecture3GeneralStatementOfTheTh.html

Third example

'Positive law' consists of voluntary law derived from presumed consent, human compacts or agreements, either express or unplied; that is, they are dependent on custom or convention.

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The rights of those who are subject to the authority and power of a state have always been defined and protected by norms that transcend positive law (Law of the human legislator).

Ius positivum = Positive law. The jurists invented this term at the end of the twelfth century to define human law, promulgated by a ruler (princeps), which they distinguished from divine, natural law, and custom.

Ius gentium = Law of nations, natural law.

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positive law. Laws actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of a jural society as distinguished from principals of morality or laws of honor. (BUSINESS LAW: PRINCIPLES AND CASES, 1978 FOURTH UCC EDITION, LUSK, HEWITT, DONNEL and BARNES, page 1342.)

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1. The positive law of nations consists of rules and obligations, which owe their origin to human compacts or agreements, either express or unplied; that is, they are dependent on custom or convention.

2. International law is generally divided into two branches;

1. The natural law of nations, consisting of the rules of justice applicable to the conduct of states.

2. The positive law of nations, which consist of,

(1) The voluntary law of nations, derived from the presumed consent of nations, arising out of their general usage.

(2) The conventional law of nations, derived from the express consent of nations, as evidenced in treaties and other international compacts.

(3) The customary law of nations, derived from the express consent of nations, as evidenced in treaties and other international compacts between themselves. Vattel, Law of Nat. Prel.

3. 1. The rules of conduct, deducible by reason from the nature of society existing among independent states, which ought to be observed among nations.

3. 2. The adjudication of international tribunals, such as prize courts and boards of arbitration.

3. 3. Text writers of authority.

3. 4. Ordinances or laws of particular states, prescribing rules for the conduct of their commissioned cruisers and prize tribunal's.

3. 5. The history of the wars, negotiations, treaties of peace, and other matters relating to the public intercourse of nations.

3. 6. Treaties of peace, alliance and commerce, declaring, modifying, or defining the pre-existing international law. Wheat. Intern. Law, pt. 1, c. 1, _14.

4. The law of nations has been divided by writers into necessary and voluntary; or into absolute and arbitrary; by others into primary and secondary, which latter has been divided into customary and conventional. Another division, which is the one more usually employed, is that of the natural and positive law of nation's.

The natural law of nations consists of those rules, which, being universal, apply to all men and to all nations, and which may be deduced by the assistance of revelation or reason, as being of utility to nations, and inseparable from their existence.

The positive law of nations consists of rules and obligations, which owe their origin, not to the divine or natural law, but to human compacts or agreements, either express or unplied; that is, they are dependent on custom or convention.

5. Among the Romans, there were two sorts of laws of nations, namely, the primitive, called primarium, and the other known by the name of secundarium.

The primarium, that is to say, primitive or more ancient, is properly the only law of nations which human reason suggests to men; as the worship of God, the respect and submission which children have for their parents, the attachment which citizens have for their country, the good faith which ought to be the soul of every agreement, and the like.

The law of nations called secundarium, are certain usages which have been established among men, from time to time, as they have been felt to be necessary. Ayl. Pand. B. 1, t. 2, p. 6.

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