adopted by Congress on March 29, 1779. The last edition of the Steuben regulations appeared in 1809, and it continued in use as a drill book after it had ceased to have authority as a volume of Army regulations. In 1808 a small volume was published, apparently with the sanction of the War Department, containing the Articles of War which had been enacted in 1806, to which were added such military laws as were then in force.

Section 5 of the act of March 3, 1813 (2 Stat. 819), required the Secretary of War to prepare general regulations which, "when approved by the President of the United States, shall be respected and obeyed until altered or revoked by the same authority." The volume of regulations issued in pursuance of this authority was entitled " Military laws and rules and regulations for the armies of the United States," and was approved by the President on May 1, 1813. It contained the Articles of War of 1806, together with the statutes relating to the military establishment and a small number of regulations, properly so called. Editions of this work were published in 1814 and 1815, the latter, however, without the authority of the War Department.

The act of April 24, 1816 (3 Stat. 298), provided that the "regulations in force before the reduction of the Army be recognized as far as the same shall be found applicable to the service, subject, however, to such alterations as the Secretary of War may adopt, with the approbation of the President." In accordance with this legislation a volume of regulations was issued in September, 1816, and in January, 1820, a new edition containing the orders of the War Department issued since September, 1816.

Section 14 of the act of March 2, 1821 (3 Stat. 616), contained a provision that "the system of regulations prepared by Major General Scott shall be, and the same are hereby, approved and adopted for the government of the Army of the United States and of the militia when in the service of the United States." These regulations were approved by President Monroe and published to the Army in July, 1821. On May 7, 1822, section 14 of the act of March 2, 1821, was formally repealed, thus withdrawing the legislative sanction which had been conferred by the statute above cited. As to this enactment Attorney General Wirt advised that, "notwithstanding such repeal, the regulations having received the sanction of the President, continued in force by the authority of the President in all cases where they did not conflict with positive legislation." (1 Opin. Att. Gen. 549.) The regulations of 1821 were revised under the direction of General Scott and a new edition was issued on March 1, 1825, which continued in force until 1835.

A volume of General Regulations, compiled under the direction of Major General Macomb, was printed and prepared for issue on September 1, 1835, but was not formally approved and promulgated until December 31, 1836. A second edition of this work, with some modifications, was issued in 1841, and a third edition, containing alterations and amendments, which have been promulgated in orders or taken from former volumes of regulations, was issued to the Army on May 1, 1847.

On January 1, 1857, a volume of Army Regulations, containing a number of important modifications, together with a general rearrangement of paragraphs and subject matter, was prepared under the direction of Secretary Davis, and published with the approval of the President on January 1, 1857. This volume continued in force until August 10, 1861, when it was replaced by a revised edition; a second edition of this work was issued on June 25, 1863, containing the "changes and laws affecting Army Regulations and Articles of War."

The thirty-seventh section of the act of July 28, 1866 (14 Stat. 337), directed the Secretary of War "to have prepared and to report to Congress at its next session a code of regulations for the government of the Army and of the militia in actual service, which shail embrace all necessary orders and forms of a general character for the performance of all duties incumbent on officers and men in the military service, including rules for the government of courts-martial; the existing regulations to remain in force until Congress shall have acted on said report." No code of regulations having been submitted, Congress provided, in section 20 of the act of July 15, 1870 (16 Stat. 319), that "the Secretary of War shall prepare a system of general regulations for the administration of the affairs of the Army, which, when approved by Congress, shall be in force and obeyed until altered or revoked by the same authority, and said regulations shall be reported to Congress at its next session: Provided, That the said regulations shall not be inconsistent with the laws of the United States."

In conformity to this legislation a code of regulations, which had been prepared by a board of officers of which Inspector General Marcy was the presi92061-17-9

dent, was submitted to the House of Representatives on February 17, 1873, and was by that body referred to the Committee on Military Affairs and ordered to be printed. No steps looking to their adoption were taken during the remainder of the session, and the Fifty-second Congress adjourned without action. The question was taken up by the Military Committee of the House of Representatives in the Forty-third Congress, and the proposition of adopting a code of Army regulations was carefully considered. The conclusion reached by the committee was that the power to make and amend or alter regulations had best be left to Executive discretion. To that end a recommendation was submitted, which was adopted by Congress and approved by the President on March 1, 1875 (18 Stat. 337). This enactment repealed section 20 of the act of July 15, 1870, and authorized the President "to make and publish regulations for the government of the Army in accordance with existing laws."

Section 2 of the act of June 23, 1879 (21 Stat. 34), authorized and directed the Secretary of War "to cause all the regulations now in force to be codified and published to the Army," and provided that the expense attending the publication of the work should be defrayed from the appropriation for the contingent expenses of the Army for the current fiscal year. Under the authority thus conferred the Regulations of 1881 were prepared and issued to the Army, the order of promulgation bearing date February 17, 1881. A revision and condensation of this volume was issued by the Secretary of War on February 9, 1889. Later revisions were issued October 31, 1895; May 1, 1901; September 15, 1904; December 31, 1910; and November 15, 1913.

Ꮓ

NOTE. The following quotation from the opinion of the court in Wright v. United States (15 Ct. Cls., 86) gives a very clear exposition of the status of the Revised Statutes.

The Revised Statutes are an act of Congress, duly passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, approved by the President, received by the Secretary of State and deposited in the State Department, where alone the originals of all laws of the United States are preserved. (Rev. Stat. sec. 204; act Dec. 28, 1874, 18 Stat. ch. 9, p. 294.) They were approved and became the law June 22, 1874. In section 5595 it is enacted that they "embrace the statutes of the United States, general and permanent in their nature in force on the first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, as revised and consolidated by commissioners appointed under an act of Congress."

It was no doubt the desire and understanding of Congress that the revision should generally reproduce and express the preexisting laws so far as it was practicable to do so. But it is well known that in the multiplicity of statutes to be revised, the ambiguity of the language of many of them, and the great difficulty and embarrassment encountered in determining the effect of legislation upon earlier acts of the same subjects, the commissioners made numerous errors and omissions. While the act was under consideration by the House of Representatives and the committee on the revision of laws, many changes were made in the language of the commissioners' report, which in some instances may also have altered the law. As early as February 18, 1875, an act was passed eutitled "An act to correct errors and to supply omissions in the Revised Statutes of the United States" (18 Stat. 316, ch. 80); and on the 27th of February, 1877, another was passed entitled "An act to perfect the revision of the statutes of the United States, and of the statutes relating to the District of Columbia" (19 Stat. 240, ch. 69). By these and other acts several hundred errors and omissions have been corrected. There still remain, however, in the revision many alterations of former laws, which Congress have never yet seen fit to disturb.

But whether or not the revision correctly reproduced the preexisting statutes in any particular case, the Revised Statutes became the law of the land on the 22d of June, 1874, when they were enacted by Congress and approved by the President, and they must so continue until altered by the same legislative power that created them. The preexisting laws thus revised are repealed and no longer in force. Section 5596 declares expressly that "all acts of Congress passed prior to said first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, any portion of which is embraced in any section of said revision are hereby repealed, and the section applicable thereto shall be in force in lieu thereof, all parts of such acts not contained in such revision having been repealed or superseded by subsequent acts, or not being general or permanent in their nature." (Holmes v. Wiltz, 11 La. Ann., 446; United States v Ham

mond, 2 Wood, C. C. R. 203; Hann v. United States, 14 Ct. Cls. R., 305; Boucicault v. Hart, 12 Blatch., 52; Bowen v. United States, 14 Ct. Cls. R., 162; affirmed on appeal, 100 U. S., 508.)

In case of ambiguous language in the Revised Statutes, or uncertainty as to the true construction to be given to the words of any section, previous acts on the same subject may be referred to and examined for light on the object and intent of Congress as shown by the course of legislation, in the same manner as statutes in pari materia relating to the same subject may always be taken, compared, and construed together. But when the language is clear, the latest act, as expressing the latest will of Congress, must govern and must supersede the preexisting legislation inconsistent therewith. (Bradshaw v. United States, 14 Ct. Cls. R., 78; Hann v. United States, 14 id., 305, and other cases above cited.)

As to the printed publications, the first edition is a transcript of the original Revised Statutes preserved in the Department of State, and is prima facie evidence thereof. If, however, the correctness of the printed copy is drawn in question, the original is the only conclusive evidence of the exact text of the law.

The second edition is neither a new revision nor a new enactment, but is only a new publication. It is a compilation containing a copy of the original Revised Statutes, like the first edition, with certain specific alterations and amendments made by subsequent enactments of the Forty-third and Fortyfourth Congresses, incorporated according to the judgment and discretion of the editor, under authority of the law providing for his appointment. (Act Mar. 2, 1877, ch. 82, 19 Stat. 268.) The editor had no power to change the substance or alter the language of the revision, nor to correct any errors or supply any omissions. The whole text of the Revised Statutes, as published in the first edition, is preserved; but where by the specific amendments made by the two Congresses mentioned, sections or parts of sections were repealed, those repealed provisions are printed in italics and included in brackets; and where, in like manner, by legislative enactment, words were required to be added or inserted, they are incorporated in their proper places in ordinary Roman letters, and are also inclosed in brackets.

Section 79, referred to in the argument of this case, illustrates the manner in which the second edition was edited. In the original, and of course in the first edition, that section stood thus:

"SEC. 79. After the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, no money shall be paid from the Treasury for the publication of the laws in Lewspapers."

The act of February 18, 1875, ch. 80 (18 Stat. 317), provided that "section seventy-nine is amended by striking out in the second line the words 'no money shall be paid from the Treasury for,' and adding, at the end of the section, the words shall cease.'" The editor incorporated the two together, thus:

"SEC. 79. After the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and seventyfive (no money shall be paid from the Treasury for), the publication of the laws in newspapers (shall cease)."

Omitting the words in italics, this section expresses the law as it has stood since February 18, 1875, when the amendment was enacted.

The act for the preparation and publication of the second or new edition of the Revised Statutes provides that "the printed volume shall be legal evidence of the laws therein contained in all the courts of the United States and of the several States and Territories, but shall not preclude reference to, nor control, in case of any discrepancy, the effect of any original act as passed by Congress since the first day of December, eighteen hundred and seventy-three." (Act Mar. 2, 1877, ch. 82, 19 Stat. 268, as amended by act Mar. 9, 1878, ch. 26, 20 Stat. 27.)

CHAPTER X.

THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT-GENERAL PROVISIONS OF ORGANIZATION.

THE REGULAR ARMY-THE VOLUNTEER ARMY AND THE MILITIA.1

327. Composition of national forces.-All able-bodied male citizens of the United States, and persons of foreign birth who shall have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, are hereby declared to constitute the national forces, and, with such exceptions and under such conditions as may be prescribed by law, shall be liable to perform military duty in the service of the United States. Sec. 1, Act of Apr. 22, 1898 (30 Stat. 361).

328. Organized and active land forces.-The organized and active land forces of the United States shall consist of the Army of the United States and of the militia of the several States when called into the service of the United States: Provided, That in time of war the Army shall consist of two branches which shall be designated, 1For statutes respecting the militia, see chapter entitled The Militia; and for statutes respecting the volunteer forces, see chapter entitled Volunteers.