In this act, passed on March 26, 1804, and coming after the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. Congress establishes Louisiana in two territories and makes provisions for a temporary government.
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Author: United States Congress
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Robert E. Lee’s Testimony before Congress (February 17, 1866)
In his testimony before the congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction on February 17, 1866, Robert E. Lee describes the attitudes of Virginians toward the war debt, the U.S. government, and African Americans. The committee members who questioned Lee were Jacob Howard, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate from Michigan, and Henry Blow, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri.
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Resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives (January 30, 1866)
This excerpt from a summary of claims law, published in 1875, includes the text and discussion of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives, on January 30, 1866, instructing its Committee of Claims to reject all claims for compensation for the destruction caused by Union armies originating in former Confederate states.
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“An Act to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled ‘An Act respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping from the Service of their Masters,’ approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three” (1850)
The Fugitive Slave Act, signed into law by President Millard Fillmore on September 18, 1850, revised the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. It expands the number of federal officials empowered to act as commissioners for the purposes of hearing fugitive-slave cases.
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“An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters” (1793)
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, signed into law by President George Washington on February 12, 1793, allows slaveowners to seize and arrest fugitive slaves and present written or oral proof to an official in order to reclaim their property.
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An Act to admit the State of Virginia to Representation in the Congress of the United States (January 26, 1870)
Following Virginia’s ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, this bill, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant on January 26, 1870, allowed Virginia’s senators and elected representatives to take their seats in Congress. The act ended Congressional Reconstruction in Virginia.
