Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

APPENDIX C
BASIC LEGISLATION
Relating to Standards of Weights and Measures
and to the Organization,
Functions, and Activities of the
National Bureau of Standards*
9 July 1778 ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, Art. 9, § 4:
The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also have the sole and exclusive
right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own
authority, or by that of the respective States; fixing the standard of weights and
measures throughout the United States.
CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES, Article 1, § 8.
The Congress shall have power . . . To coin money, regulate the value thereof,
and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.
Act of 19 May 1828 (4 Stat. 278)—[Adoption of a brass troy pound
weight copied by Captain Henry Kater from the British troy pound of 1758
as the standard for coinage. An Act of 12 Feb 1873 (17 Stat. 424, 432)
reenacted the provisions of 1828 concerning the troy pound weight.]
An Act . . . for the purpose of securing a due conformity in weight of the coins
of the United States. . .. The brass troy pound weight procured by the minister of
the United States at London, in the year 1827, for the use of the mint . . . shall be
the standard troy pound of the mint of the United States, conformably to which the
coinage thereof shall be regulated.
Joint Resolution of 14 June 1836 (5 Stat. 133)—A Resolution Provid-
ing for the [construction and] distribution of weights and measures [as
modified by Acts of 14 February 1903 and 4 March 1913 transferring the
responsibility to the Secretary of Commerce].
That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is directed to cause a com-
plete set of all the weights and measures adopted as standards, and now either made
or in the progress of manufacture for the use of the several custom-houses, and for
other purposes, to be delivered to the Governor of each State in the Union, or such
person as he may appoint, for the use of the States respectively, to the end that an
uniform standard of weights and measures may be established throughout the United
States.
*In most instances only the pertinent parts have been reproduced here.
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