United States Congress in the context of "Radical Republicans"

The Library of Congress (LC or sometimes LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the de facto national library of the United States. It also administers copyright law through the United States Copyright Office, and it houses the Congressional Research Service.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. It is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill, adjacent to the United States Capitol, along with the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, and additional storage facilities at Fort George G. Meade and Cabin Branch in Hyattsville, Maryland. The library's functions are overseen by the librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the architect of the Capitol. The LC is one of the largest libraries in the world, containing approximately 173 million items and employing over 3,000 staff. Its collections are "universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages".

Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia and commonly known as simply Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is separated from Virginia to its southwest by the Potomac River and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It was named after George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States. The district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation.

The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state, and is not one itself. The Residence Act, adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River, and is considered the city's founding date. In 1800, when the capital was moved from Philadelphia, the 6th Congress started meeting in the then-unfinished Capitol Building, and the second president, John Adams, moved into the newly finished White House. In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria, was officially made the federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger district. In 1846, Congress reduced the size of the district when it returned the land Virginia had ceded, including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it made the entire district into a single municipality. There have been several failed efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s, including a statehood bill that passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate.

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution defined the foundational structure of the federal government.

The drafting of the Constitution by many of the nation's Founding Fathers, often referred to as its framing, was completed at the Constitutional Convention, which assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between May 25 and September 17, 1787. Influenced by English common law and the Enlightenment liberalism of philosophers like John Locke and Montesquieu, the Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, in which the federal government is divided into the legislative, bicameral Congress; the executive, led by the president; and the judiciary, within which the Supreme Court has apex jurisdiction. Articles IV, V, and VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure used to ratify the constitution.

Territories of the United States are subnational geographical and political areas governed as administrative divisions and dependent territories under the sovereignty of the United States. Despite all being subject to the constitutional and territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. federal government, territories differ from states and Indian reservations in that they are not inherently sovereign. While states have dual sovereignty and Native American tribes have tribal sovereignty in relation to the federal government, the self-governing powers of territories ultimately derive from the U.S. Congress, as per the Territorial Clause in Article IV of the U.S. Constitution. Territories are classified as "organized" or "unorganized" depending on whether they operate under an organic act, and "incorporated" or "unincorporated" depending on whether the U.S. Constitution applies fully or partially to them. As areas belonging to, but not integral parts of, the U.S., territories are their own distinct nations centered around a collective identity based on their land, history, ethnicity, culture, and language.

All territories of the U.S. are insular areas. The U.S. has sovereignty over three archipelagos or islands in the Caribbean Sea and eleven in the Pacific Ocean. Five territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands) are permanently inhabited, unincorporated territories; the other nine are small islands, atolls, and reefs with no native (or permanent) population. Of the 14, only one is classified as an incorporated territory (Palmyra Atoll). Two additional territories (Bajo Nuevo Bank and Serranilla Bank) are claimed by the U.S. but administered by Colombia. Historically, territories were created to administer newly acquired land, and most eventually attained statehood. The most recent territory to become a U.S. state was Hawaii on August 21, 1959.

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and the naval warfare force of the United States. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, one undergoing trials, two new carriers under construction, and six other carriers planned as of 2024. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the U.S. Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 299 deployable combat vessels and about 4,012 operational aircraft as of 18 July 2023. The U.S. Navy is a part of the United States Department of Defense and is one of six armed forces of the United States and one of eight uniformed services of the United States.

The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. After suffering significant loss of goods and personnel at the hands of the Barbary pirates from Algiers, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 for the construction of six heavy frigates, the first ships of the Navy. The United States Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers. It played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The United States Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world, succeeding the British Navy. The modern United States Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. It is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and rapidly respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in American foreign and military policy.

The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and minor islands. Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows states to exercise all powers of government not delegated to the federal government. Each state has its own constitution and government. All states and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state elects two senators, while representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census.

Each state is entitled to select a number of electors to vote in the Electoral College, the body that elects the president of the United States, equal to the total of representatives and senators in Congress from that state. The federal district does not have representatives in the Senate, but has a non-voting delegate in the House, and it is entitled to electors in the Electoral College. Congress can admit more states, but it cannot create a new state from territory of an existing state or merge two or more states into one without the consent of all states involved. Each new state is admitted on an equal footing with the existing states.

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion; prohibiting the free exercise of religion; or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. In the original draft of the Bill of Rights, what is now the First Amendment occupied third place. The first two articles were not ratified by the states, so the article on disestablishment and free speech ended up being first.

The Bill of Rights was proposed to assuage Anti-Federalist opposition to Constitutional ratification. Initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with Gitlow v. New York (1925), the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The First Amendment applies only to state actors.

The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States.

The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The powers of these three branches are defined and vested by the U.S. Constitution, which has been in continuous effect since March 4, 1789. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by Acts of Congress, including the creation of executive departments and courts subordinate to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The powers of the president of the United States include those explicitly granted by Article II of the United States Constitution as well as those granted by Acts of Congress, implied powers, and also a great deal of soft power that is attached to the presidency.

The Constitution explicitly assigns the president the power to sign or veto legislation, command the armed forces, ask for the written opinion of their Cabinet, convene or adjourn Congress, grant reprieves and pardons, and receive ambassadors. The president takes care that the laws are faithfully executed and has the power to appoint and remove executive officers; as a result of these two powers, the president can direct officials on how to interpret the law (subject to judicial review) and on staffing and personnel decisions. The president may make treaties, which need to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, and is accorded those foreign-affairs functions not otherwise granted to Congress or shared with the Senate. Thus, the president can control the formation and communication of foreign policy and can direct the nation's diplomatic corps. The president may also appoint Article III judges and some officers with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. In the condition of a Senate recess, the president may make a temporary appointment.

The United States Government Publishing Office (USGPO or GPO), formerly the United States Government Printing Office, is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The office produces and distributes information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications of the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive departments, and independent agencies.

An act of Congress changed the office's name to its current form in 2014.