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Category: Law Library

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From the Serial Set: Residency, Race, and Suffrage

Posted by: Bailey DeSimone

Congress has dealt with issues of voter disenfranchisement on the basis of race throughout history. The question of suffrage for District of Columbia residents in 1844 demonstrated how the enfranchisement of D.C. residents and Black American men was interconnected. In that year, the Senate Committee for the District of Columbia, which held jurisdiction over D.C. from 1816 until …

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From the Serial Set: In Diplomatic Fashion

Posted by: Bailey DeSimone

Every so often, the Digital Resources Division comes across a unique subject of debate. Most recently, the question of “the uniform or costume of persons in the diplomatic or consular service” caught our attention. (S. Exec. Doc. No. 31, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., at 1 (1860) reprinted in Serial Set Vol. 1031.) In an 1860 …

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From (and Before) the Serial Set: Collecting the American State Papers

Posted by: Bailey DeSimone

Congressional documents preceding the Serial Set from 1789 to 1817 became the American State Papers. However, these documents were not collected and published until the 1830s, when “[t]he volumes of Congressional documents, [sic] [became] too numerous for easy reference, and we (Congress) [found] a great difficulty in keeping our (the) series perfect.” (H. Doc. no. 35, …