OF

THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS,

COMPILED AS

A MANUAL OF REFERENCE

FOR THE

LEGISLATOR AND STATESMAN.

BY

CHARLES LANMAN.

THIRD EDITION:

REVISED AND BROUGHT DOWN TO JULY 28, 1866.

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.

1866.

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia.

[By resolution of the Senate of the United States, passed at the First Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, fifteen hundred and fifty copies were ordered to be printed for the use of that body; the copyright for those numbers having been duly assigned.]

PREFACE.

POLITICAL laws, wisely framed, have made the United States powerful and wealthy to a degree unexampled in modern times; and I have thought that a book of facts, recording the public services of our National lawmakers, would be a deserved tribute to them, and, at the same time, be generally useful. The record embraces the Senators, Representatives, and Delegates who have served under the Federal Constitution, as well as the Delegates to the Continental Congress, and has been made in each case as correct and concise as possible. Of many men more might have been written, but that was not deemed expedient in a work of this kind; and where not enough has been said, the fault must be attributed to the indifference of the persons mostly interested, or to the neglect of their friends. Not being a politician, it has given me but little trouble to be impartial. My intention has been to express no opinions of living men, and but seldom to echo public opinion in regard to the dead. My leading object has been to prepare a kind of labor-saving machine, for the benefit of all who feel an interest in the political history and future prosperity of the Republic; and, in the Appendix, I have endeavored to bring together, from the government archives, a mass of Legislative and Executive information, calculated to be of service to Members of Congress, while engaged in their public duties, and especially in their examination of the Public Documents.