128
Opinion of the Court
indicating that in the FCA Congress intended a more limited meaning.
First, it says that the statutory text is "inherently inconsistent with local governmental liability," Brief for Petitioner 13, owing to the references of the original enactment to "any person in the land or naval forces of the United States" and "any person not in the military or naval forces of the United States," together with a provision imposing criminal liability, including imprisonment, on defendants in the latter category, see Act of Mar. 2, 1863, ch. 67, §§ 1, 3, 12 Stat. 696, 697, 698.8 But the old text merely shows that "any person in the land or naval forces" was directed at natural persons. The second phrase, covering all other "persons," could not have been that limited, or even private corporations would be outside the FCA's coverage, a reading that not even the County espouses and one that we seriously doubted in Stevens, 529 U. S., at 782. As for the FCA's reference to criminal liability, "[t]he short answer is that it has not been regarded as anomalous to require compliance by municipalities with the substantive standards of . . . federal laws which impose [both civil and criminal] sanctions upon 'persons.' " Lafayette v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 435 U. S. 389, 400 (1978). Municipalities may not be susceptible to every statutory penalty, but that is no reason to exempt them from remedies that sensibly apply. Id., at 400-401; United States v. Union Supply Co., 215 U. S. 50, 54-55 (1909).
The other contextual evidence cited by the County is the history of the FCA. We recounted in Stevens that Congress's primary concern in 1863 was " 'stopping the massive frauds perpetrated by large [private] contractors during the Civil War.' " 529 U. S., at 781 (quoting United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S. 303, 309 (1976), but adding "[private]"). Local governments, the County says, were not players in the
8 The FCA's civil and criminal provisions were bifurcated in 1878, see Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 592, n. 8 (1958), and the latter provisions have since been recodified at 18 U. S. C. § 287.
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