REVISED STATUTES OF THE UNITED STATES. The Revised Statutes were enact ed June 22, 1874, and, when printed in 1875, embraced the laws, general and permanent in their nature, in force December 1, 1873. A second edition was completed in the latter part of 1878, and includes only the specific amendments passed by the forty-third and forty-fourth congresses, with references to some other acts. The period from 1874 to 1880 is provided for by a supplement pub lished in 1881. See Preface to Supplement to Rev. Stat. A second edition of the supple ment, covering the legislation from 1874 to 1891, and embracing the matter in the Supple ment to the Revised Statutes of 1881, was prepared and published under the direction of congress by Chief Justice Win. A. Richard son of the Court of Claims. Volume 2 of the Supplement covers legislation down to March 4, 1901. Subsequent legislation is found in Statutes at Large, vols. 32 to 37. Vol. 37 covers the 63d Congress, 1911-1913.
Transactions subsequent to the enactment of the Revised Statutes must be determined by the law as there found, and not by the earlier statutes incorporated therein. In cases of ambiguity or uncertainty, the pre vious statutes may be referred to to elucidate the legislative intent, but where the language is clear, the Revised Statutes must govern. The second edition is neither a new revision nor a new enactment ; it is only a new pub llcatlon, a compilation containing the original law with certain specific alterations and amendments made by subsequent legislation incorporated therein according to the judg ment of the editor, who had no discretion to correct errors or supply omissions ; Wright v. U. S., 15 Ct. Cl. 80. Sections of a statute
re-enacted in the Revised Statutes are to be given the same meaning they had hi the orig inal, unless a contrary intention is clearly manifested ; U. S. v. Le Bris, 121 U. S. 278, 7 Sup. Ct. 894, 30 L. Ed. 946; the Revised Statutes are merely a compilation of the statutes of the United States, and resort may be had to the .original statute to ascertain what, if any, change of phraseology there is, and whether such change should be construed as changing the law ; U. S. v. Lacher, 134 U. S. 626, 10 Sup. Ct. 625, 33 L. Ed. 1080; and this is specially so where the act author izing the revision directs marginal references as in this case; Barrett v. U. S., 169 U. S. 227, 18 Sup. Ct. 327, 42 L. Ed. 723, where some historical mattes relating to the subject is found. "They must be treated as the leg islative declaration of the statute law on the subjects embraced, on the first day of December, 1873. When the meaning is plain, the courts cannot look to the statutes which have been revised, to see if congress, erred in that revision, but may do so when nec essary to construe doubtful language." Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger, 157 U. S. 1, 15 Sup. Ct. 508, 39 L. Ed. 601; U. S. v. Com mercial Co., 74 Fed. 145.
An intention to alter the scope and purpose of an existing law cannot .be imputed to con gress because it placed in the Revised Stat utes in two separate sections portions of what was a single section of the original act ; Anderson v. Steamship Co., 225 U. S. 187, 32 Sup. Ct. 626, 56 L. Ed. 1047.
See STATUTES AT LARGE.