The New International Encyclopædia/Congressional Record

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, The journal of the United States Congress. Up to 1799 the Senate sat with closed doors, and no reports of its proceedings were published. Since that time, an official record of the proceedings of each House is required to be published. The so-called ‘executive sessions’ of the Senate are secret. The journal now known as the Congressional Record was called from 1789 to 1824 the Annals of Congress; from 1825 to 1837 the Register of Debates; from 1834 to 1874 the Congressional Globe. Since 1875 its present name has been used. The Record, however, is not an accurate transcript of the actual proceedings. Members are allowed to revise their remarks before they appear in type; and they also frequently receive from the House ‘leave to print’ speeches which they have never delivered, but which appear in the Record as though a part of the proceedings of the session.