...
Prior to being published in bound volumes, public and private laws are issued individually as slip laws. The library currently receives hard copies of slip laws.FDsys http://www.gpoaccess.gov/statutes/index.html provides access to slip laws, archived from the 104th Congress onward. The first seventeen volumes of the Statutes at Large, covering the laws of the first 43 Congresses, 1789-1875 can be accessed at the Library of Congress American Memory Project - Statutes at Large.
...