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Collection A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774 to 1875

Senate Executive Journal

The Senate Executive Journal is a separate record of its executive proceedings from 1789-1875.

From its inaugural session, in addition to its legislative journal, the Senate has maintained a separate record of its executive proceedings that relate to its functions of confirming presidential nominees and consenting to the making of treaties. The Senate Executive Journal was not made public until 1828, when the Senate decided to print and publish the proceedings for all the previous Congresses and thereafter to publish the journal for each session at its close.

Like the House and Senate legislative journals, the Senate Executive Journal progressed in form from daily handwritten notes to a rewritten clean copy, which in turn was set into print. In early sessions, the entries are much shorter than those in the legislative journal and so each printed volume covers many more Congresses.

A special feature in volume 1 of the Senate Executive Journal is a seven-page list entitled An Alphabetical List of the Senators of the United States From the commencement of the Government to the termination of the 19th Congress.

Bibliographic Record

This collection is available in PDF on Congress.gov on the Browse pages under Congressional Activity from the 1st through the 37th Congresses. An archived version is available here.