[House of Representatives, No. 102.] 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, May i:>, 18*4.— Read first 
 and second times, referred to the Committee on Printing and ordered 
 to bo printed. 
 
 [By Mr. Dupre.] . 
 
 AN" ACT 
 
 To provide* for the*safe custody, printing, publication and distribution 
 of the law.s, and to provide for the appointment of an additional 
 clerk in the Department of Justice. 
 
 1 Section 1 . The Congress of the Confederate States of America do 
 
 2 enact, That it shall be the duty of the Attorney G neral, at the 
 
 3 close of each session of Congress, to select from the laws and 
 
 4 resolutions such as may be of a public nature, an 1 which, in his 
 
 5 judgment, require immediate publication, and en use the same 
 
 6 to be inserted, weekly, for four weeks, in the public gazettes 
 
 7 published in each State, selecting such gazettes as shall, in his 
 S judgment, most generally distribute the laws and resolutions 
 9 through the entire limits of the several States. 
 
 1 Sec. 2. It snail be the duty of the said Attorney General, at 
 
 2 the close of each session of Congress, to cause all the laws, and 
 
 3 resolutions having the force of laws, and all treaties entered into 
 
 4 by the Confederate States, to be published Under the Superin- 
 
2 
 
 5 tendent of Public Printing. The laws shall be arranged in the 
 
 order of their date ; shall have marginal not^s to each section ; 
 
 7 shall be fully indexed, and shall be published on the best paper 
 
 8 that can be secured by said Superintendent, to the number of 
 
 9 thousand copies, in a style equal in execution to the 
 
 10 edition of the laws of the United States, as annually published 
 
 11 by Little & Brown. They shall be bound in pamphlet, in a 
 
 12 style not inferior to that in which the laws published by Little 
 
 13 & Brown are annually; and one thousand copies thereof shall 
 
 14 be preserved and bound in calf, in a solid and substantial manner, 
 
 15 . as often as the number of pages shall be sufficient to form a 
 1G volume of not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand 
 
 17 pages ; and whenever the volumes are thus bound, a new index 
 
 18 shall be made, comprising the contents of the whole volume. 
 
 1 Sec. 3. The printing of the laws, as required by the foregoing 
 
 2 section, shall be executed by the Public Printer, under the direc- 
 
 3 tion of the Superintendent of Public Printing, and, until other- 
 
 4 wise provided for, the compensation for the printing of the said 
 
 5 law's, and the publication thereof, as provided for in the first 
 
 6 section, and the binding thereof in pamphlet form, as well as all 
 
 7 the printing ordered by either House* of Congress, and all other 
 
 8 work printed for any of the Departments of the Government, 
 
 9 shall be such as the Joint Committee on Printing of the two 
 10 Houses may determine fr> be * equitable : Promded, That until 
 
s 
 
 1 1 otherwise ordered, the Superintendent of Public Printing, under 
 
 12 the* direction of the Attorney General, shall have authority to 
 
 13 apportion the printing for the several Executive Departments 
 
 1 4 (the Post Office Department excepted) among the different print- 
 
 15 in" establishments in the city of Richmond, where the work can 
 
 16 be most eppedily returned without the formality of making reg- 
 
 17 ular contracts. 
 
 1 Sec. 4. The laws, when bound in pamphlet form, shall be 
 
 2 distributed as follows : copies to each member of Congress, 
 
 3 twenty copies to each Secretary of the Senate and the Clerks of 
 
 4 the House of Representatives, one copy to. each committee of the 
 
 5 two Houses of Congress, five copies to the President and Vice 
 
 6 President, two hundred copies to the Department of State, for its; 
 
 7 own use and for distribution among the diplomatic and consular 
 S offices of the Confederate States, six hundred copies to the De- 
 9 partment of the Treasury, fbr its own use and for distribution 
 
 1 1) among the revenue officers of the Government, two hundred copies 
 
 1 1 to the Department of Justice, for its own use, and for distribu- 
 
 12 tion among the judges, clerks, ^marshals, and attorneys of the 
 
 13 Confederate States, fifty copies each to the Departments of War 
 
 14 and Navy, ajd to the Postmastei General, copies to the 
 
 15 Governors of the several States, for the use of the States. The 
 1G remaining copies shall be preserved in the Department of Justice, 
 17 subject to the further order of Gongrv-w; and the remaining 
 
4 - 
 
 18 copies, now in the Attorney General's office, of the laws of 
 
 19 the first, second, third and fourth sessions of the permanent 
 
 20 Congress 
 
 1 Sec. 5. Any printer or publisher who m*ay desire to print and 
 
 2 publish an edition of the laws of the Confederate States may do 
 
 3 so at his expense, and for his own benefit; and the Attorney 
 
 4 General shall grant a certificate of authentication to any such 
 
 5 edition of the laws as shall conform to the standard now required 
 
 6 for the printing and publication of the laws. Any edition of 
 
 7 the the laws so authenticated shall avail for all purposes for 
 
 8 which the official publication may now be used. 
 
 1 Sec. 6. The Attorney General is authorized to appoint an 
 
 2 additional clerk in the Department of Justice for the purpose of 
 
 3 carrying into effect the provisions of this act, to be called the 
 
 4 Law Clerk of said Department, at a salary of , and also such 
 
 5 other additional clerical force. as he may deem necessary to aid 
 G the Law Clerk to prepare promptly the laws for publication, as 
 7 provided herein. 
 
 1 Sec. 7. All laws and parts of laws heretofore enacted providing 
 
 2 for the safe custody, preservation, printing, publication and dis- 
 
 3 tributicn of the laws are hereby repealed, with the exception of' 
 
 4 the second section of the act entitled " An act to provide for the 
 
 5 safe custody, printing, publication and distribution of the laws, 
 G and to provide for the appointment of an additional clerk in the 
 
 7 Department of Justice," approved the seventeenth of February, 
 
 8 eighteen hundred and sixty-two.