Understand the Sources

Overview: Congressional Journals

The Constitution of the United States (Article I, Section 5, Clause. 3) requires that the Senate and the House of Representatives each keep and publish a Journal of their activities. The Journals contain the minutes of the meetings of each House and thereby constitute an official record of business transacted on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives. While generally omitting the text of debate [some of the earlier Journals do, however sporadically, contain a few excerpts from speeches], the Journals provide a concise chronological record of Congressional action on bills, resolutions, memorials, petitions, communications from the President, and other official matters.

Time period: 1789-present, though CIS microfiche coverage is 1789-1978. The Journal is printed at the conclusion of each session of Congress for each House.

Organization: the Journal entries, like a diary, are chronological. Records of special sessions activities, e.g., impeachment trials in the Senate, may be printed as appendices.

Size: approximately 435 volumes, 1789-1978. CIS Microfiche for the total CIS Congressional Journals Collection from 1789 through 1978 is 4177 Microfiche. Those Journal publications not also contained in the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, i.e., the Journals for 1789-1817 and 1953-1978, number 1252 Microfiche.

Indexes: there are internal indexes in each volume. As with other internal finding aids for large historical government document collections, the quality and consistency of the indexes vary over time. The index to bills and resolutions, however, was especially helpful in constructing our CIS US Serial Set Index by Reported Bill Numbers.

Publisher: the publisher has been either the House of Representatives or the Senate respectively. The Journals of the Congress for the first 14 Congresses were printed on contract by a number of printers listed in the table below. From the 1st Session of the 15th Congress through the 2nd Session of the 82nd Congress the journals are included in the publications in the U.S. Congressional Serial Set. Journals are of course still printed after the end of each session of Congress, but their distribution is once again limited.

The Journals of the early Congresses were originally printed in small numbers by a variety of printers. After the burning of the Capitol by the British in the War of 1812, copies of the House and Senate Journals gradually became even rarer so that by 25 April 1820, Mr. Smith from the Committee on the Judiciary reported (16-1) S.doc. 119, Serial Set vol. 27:

"That the committee have found, upon inquiry, there is now, in the office of the Senate, the original manuscript Journal, but there are no printed copies, in the possession of the Senate, of any date prior to the month of August, 1814; all such printed copies as then belonged to the Senate were, at that period, burned, in the Capitol, by the British army."

Although the committee deemed it "inexpedient to republish them at this time" their concern later that year led to the Gales & Seaton reprint edition of the Senate Journals for the first 14 Congresses in five volumes in 1820 and eventually in 1826 the Gales & Seaton reprint of the House Journals in nine volumes.

When CIS filmed the journals, the original publications, not the Gales and Seaton volumes which were all that the Senate Library possessed, were microfilmed. The following table, originally published in Documents to the People (Spring, 1999), presents the publication history of the early U.S. Congressional Journals.

Congress/Session	House Journal (Printer/Place/Date/Collation)	Senate Journal (Printer/Place/Date/Collation)
1st Cong. 1st Sess.	Francis Chills and John Swain, New York, [1789] 164, [clove]-clxxvii p.	Thomas Greenleaf, New York, 1789, 172 p.
2nd	Francis Childs and John Swaine, New York, 1790, 261 p.	John Fenno, New York, 1790, 224 p.
3rd	Francis Childs and John Swaine, Philadelphia, 1791, 104 p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1791, 203 p.
2nd Cong. 1st Sess.	Francis Childs and John Swaine, Philadelphia, 1792, 245 p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1791, 228 p.
2nd	Francis Childs and John Swaine, Philadelphia, 1793, 167, [24] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1792 [1793], 100 p.
3rd Cong. 1st Sess.	Childs and Swaine, Philadelphia, 1793, 438, [29] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1793, 205 p.
2nd	Francis Childs and John Swaine, Philadelphia, 1794, 312, [26] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1794, 114, [3], [8] p.
4th Cong. 1st Sess.	Francis Childs, Philadelphia, 1795, 537, [1], [34] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1795, 346, vi, xxi p.
2nd	William Ross, Philadelphia, 1796, 299, [27] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1796, 175, iv, 18 p.
5th Cong. 1st Sess.	William Ross, Philadelphia, 1797, 140, [12] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1797, 115, xvii, x p.
2nd	William Ross, Philadelphia, 1797, 683, [52] p.	John Fenno, Philadelphia, [1798], 501, vii, 24 p.
3rd	William Ross, Philadelphia, 1798, 266, [24] p.	John Ward Fenno, Philadelphia, 1799, 222, vi, xiv p.
6th Cong. 1st Sess.	William Ross, Philadelphia, [1800], 446, [32] p.	John Ward Fenno, Philadelphia, 1799, 336, 1, xx p.
2nd	William Ross, Washington, [1801], 276, [24] p.	Way and Groff, Washington, 1800, 149 ix p.
7th Cong. 1st Sess.	Samuel Harrison Smith, Washington, [1802], 563, [72] p.	Way and Groff, Washington, 1801, 284, xx p.
2nd	Samuel Harrison Smith, Washington, [1803], 384, [72] p.	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1802, 169, xv p.
8th Cong. 1st Sess.	Samuel Harrison Smith, Washington, [1804], 684, [88] p.	William Duane & Son, Washington, 1803, 344, 5, [1], xxi, [1] p.
2nd	Samuel Harrison Smith, Washington, 1804 [1805], 431, [69] p.	William Duane & Son, Washington, 1804, 216, iv, [1], xviii, 140 p.
9th Cong. 1st Sess.	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1805, 537, 54, [67] p.	William Duane & Son, Washington, 1805, 348, 7, [1], xxix, p.
2nd	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1806, 400, [58] p.	William Duane & Son, Washington, 1806, 268, 5, [1], xxv p.
10th Cong. 1st Sess.	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1807, 659, 35, [117] p.	R.C. Weightman, Washington, 1807, 340, viii, [1] p.
2nd	A, & G. Way, Washington, 1808, 533, 15, [59] p.	R.C. Weightman, Washington, 1808, 274, [1], xxv p.
11th Cong. 1st Sess.	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1809, 206, [25] p.	R.C. Weightman, Washington, 1809, 100, iii, [1], xi p.
2nd	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1809, 656, [1], [46] p.	R.C. Weightman, Washington, 1809, 401, vi, [1], xxxix p.
3rd	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1810, 394, [38] p.	R.C. Weightman, Washington, 1810 253, v, [1], xxix p.
12th Cong. 1st Sess.	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1811, vol. 1 574; vol. 2, 575-877, 161, [69], 18 p.	Roger C. Weightman, Washington, 1811, 613, xv, [1], lv p.
2nd	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1812, 411, [40] p.	Roger C. Weightman, Washington, 1812, 323, vi, [1], xxxii p.
13th Cong. 1st Sess.	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1813, 320, 16, [30] p.	Roger C. Weightman, Washington, 1813, 253, [1], xxiv p.
2nd	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1813, 631, 31, [64] p.	Roger C. Weightman, Washington, 1813, 400, [1], viii, xxxviii p.
3rd	A. & G. Way, Washington, 1814, 788, 11, 3, 72 p.	Roger C. Weightman, Washington, 1814, 545, xliv p.
14th Cong. 1st Sess.	William A. Davis, Washington, 1815, 767, [1], [3]-119 p.	William A. Davis, Washington, 1815, 649, 17, [2], 68 p.
2nd	William A. Davis, Washington, 1816, 566, 92 p.	William A. Davis, Washington, 1816 438, 33, 68 p.

From the 15th through the 82nd Congress, the House and Senate Journals were routinely assigned the first sequential Serial Set volume numbers in the House and Senate series for each session of each Congress.