Digital Collections

The Law Library continues to digitize legal and legislative materials to help users gain access to important historical documents. The Law Library regularly adds digitized content, as noted in the About the Collection section for each collection.

  • Collection
    A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1875 Beginning with the Continental Congress in 1774, America's national legislative bodies have kept records of their proceedings. The records of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress make up a rich documentary history of the construction of the nation and the development of the federal government and its role in the national life. These documents record American history in the…
    • Contributor: Law Library of Congress (U.S.) - Library of Congress. National Digital Library Program
    • Date: 1998

    Collection Items: View 40 Items

  • Collection
    Code of Federal Regulations The Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) is "the codification of the general and permanent rules by the department and agencies of the Federal Government." This is a historical collection of the Code of Federal Regulations dating from 1938 - 1995. To access the Code of Regulations from 1996 – present, please visit the Government Publishing Office site, GovInfo.
    • Date: 1938

    Collection Items: View 232,465 Items

  • Collection
    Federal Register The Federal Register is the official daily publication for Presidential Documents, Executive Orders, proposed, interim, and final rules and regulations, and notices by Federal Agencies, as well as notices of hearings, decisions, investigations, and committee meetings. The Federal Register has been published by the National Archives and Records Administration since 1936 and consists of several distinct parts.

    Collection Items: View 14,589 Items

  • Collection
    Foreign Legal Gazettes in the Law Library of Congress The Law Library of Congress has been collecting foreign official gazettes since the mid-nineteenth century and maintains one of the largest gazette collections in the world. Official gazettes are primary sources of law published by governments to disseminate new legislation, regulations, and decisions of governmental bodies. These publications may also contain other information including the text of international agreements, court decisions, official announcements, and…

    Collection Items: View 39,589 Items

  • Collection
    Global Legal Monitor The Global Legal Monitor is an online publication from the Law Library of Congress covering legal news and developments worldwide. It is updated frequently and draws on information from official national legal publications and reliable press sources. You can find previous news by searching the Global Legal Monitor.

    Collection Items: View 7,757 Items

  • Collection
    Historic Sources of Brazilian Law This collection brings together important historical sources of Brazilian law in original editions, covering Brazil and related jurisdictions from the 15th through the 19th centuries. Books in the collection relate to the laws of Spain and Portugal during the Iberian Union (1580-1640), the Kingdom of Portugal and the Portuguese Colonial Empire, the United Kingdom of Portugal and Algarves (1815-1822), legislation of the Empire of…

    Collection Items: View 42 Items

  • Collection
    John Adams and the Boston Massacre Trial of 1770 As noted in the 2008 HBO mini-series chronicling the life and career of John Adams (1735-1826), as a young lawyer the future president served as counsel for the defense in the trial of eight British soldiers accused of murder during a riot in Boston on March 5, 1770. William Wemms, James Hartegan, William McCauley, Hugh White, Matthew Killroy, William Warren, John Carrol, and Hugh…

    Collection Items: View 5 Items

  • Collection
    Law Library Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Books to 1600 This collection includes more than 90 manuscript books about law dating from before 1600 AD and representing a variety of languages and jurisdictions. The dates of their production range from the early 13th century to the end of the 16th century, and the texts contained in them represent more than fifteen hundred years of legal tradition from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. They…

    Collection Items: View 24 Items

  • Collection
    Legal Reports (Publications of the Law Library of Congress) This collection features research reports and other publications on a wide range of legal topics prepared by the Law Library of Congress in response to requests or recurring interest from Congress and other federal government entities on issues concerning foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL).

    Collection Items: View 4,278 Items

  • Collection
    Lincoln and the Law Lincoln’s effort to restore the Union and his contributions to American political thought and its ideals of freedom often obscure the fact that he had been a successful attorney. Lincoln himself admitted his ambition lay in politics and not in the law, stating “my forte is as a Statesman, rather than a Prosecutor.” Even if the law was Lincoln’s “secondary” avocation, it was indelibly…

    Collection Items: View 24 Items

  • Collection
    Military Legal Resources This collection includes material from the William Winthrop Memorial Library at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School External in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) External is the legal arm of the United States Army, established on July 29, 1775 External by General George Washington. Selections of their physical library collection have been digitized and made available to…

    Collection Items: View 2,278 Items

  • Collection
    National Transportation Safety Board Orders, Petitions, and Decisions The Law Library of Congress has digitized a collection of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) decisions, orders, and petitions. NTSB conducts independent accident investigations and decides pilots' and mariners' certification appeals. The documents included in this collection are selected documents, not included in the Library's bound collection of NTSB decisions and not previously available online. The years of the decisions span from 1973-1982, with…

    Collection Items: View 1,269 Items

  • Collection
    Native American Constitutions and Legal Materials The Law Library of Congress collection contains a variety of Native American legal materials. The Law Library holds most of the laws and constitutions from the early 19th century produced by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole who were forced to leave the Southeast for the Indian Territory after passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Some of these documents are in…

    Collection Items: View 428 Items

  • Collection
    Piracy Trials The Law Library of Congress has digitized its collection of pre-1923 piracy trials. This historical collection of piracy trials is critical for understanding how the various nations of the world handled piracy issues before the year 1900.

    Collection Items: View 57 Items

  • Collection
    Slavery and the Judiciary, 1740 to 1860 This collection consists of 105 library books and manuscripts, totalling approximately 8,700 pages drawn principally from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, with a few from the General Collections. The selection was guided in large part by the entries in Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases by Paul Finkelman (Washington,…
    • Contributor: Library of Congress. Law Library - Library of Congress. Rare Book and Special Collections Division - Library of Congress. National Digital Library Program
    • Date: 2002

    Collection Items: View 109 Items

  • Collection
    Spanish Legal Documents (15th-19th Centuries) The Library of Congress purchased this collection now described as Spanish Legal Documents (15th-19th Centuries) in 1941 and it was microfilmed in 1983 and 1984. They were primarily issued individually in sections, which varied from 1 to 6 folios; the majority of the documents were printed using handset type on handmade paper which is in exceptionally good condition.
    • Date: 14??

    Collection Items: View 2,478 Items

  • Collection
    U.S. Code The United States Code-- is a compilation of federal statutory law arranged by subject by the House Office of Law Revision Council. Each title in the United States Code corresponds to a subject. For example, title 18 concerns crimes and criminal procedure. 18 U.S.C. § 1 is an example a citation in the Code. 18 indicates the title, U.S.C. is an abbreviation for the…

    Collection Items: View 55,147 Items

  • Collection
    United States Congressional Serial Set (Bound House and Senate Documents and Reports) The U.S. Congressional Serial Set, commonly known as the Serial Set, is a compilation of journals, reports, and documents from House and Senate proceedings as well as documents from executive departments and independent agencies. Documents cover a wide variety of topics and may include reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations.…

    Collection Items: View 24,209 Items

  • Collection
    United States Reports (Official opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court) The United States Reports is a series of bound case reporters that are the official reports of decisions for the Supreme Court of the United States. A citation to a U. S. Supreme Court decision includes several elements that are needed to retrieve the case. For example, Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984). In this example, the…

    Collection Items: View 36,622 Items

  • Collection
    United States Statutes at Large The United States Statutes at Large is the collection of every law, public and private, ever enacted by the Congress, published in order of the date of its passage. These laws are codified every six years in the United States Code, but the Statutes at Large remains the official source of legislation. Until 1948, all treaties and international agreements approved by the Senate were…
    • Contributor: United States - United States. Office of the Federal Register - United States. Department of State
    • Date: 1937

    Collection Items: View 82 Items

  • Collection
    United States Treaties and Other International Agreements The United States Treaties collection includes the Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949, compiled by Charles I. Bevans (commonly called Bevans) and United States Treaties and Other International Agreements (U.S.T.) (1950-1984). This collection includes treaties to which the United States is or was a party in the agreement, between 1776-1984.

    Collection Items: View 136 Items

  • Collection
    World Digital Library This collection contains cultural heritage materials gathered during the World Digital Library (WDL) project, including thousands of items contributed by partner organizations worldwide as well as content from Library of Congress collections. The original World Digital Library site (preserved in LC’s Web Archives here) and all descriptive metadata were translated from English and made available in six additional languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Russian,…

    Collection Items: View 19,407 Items