Cite as: 508 U. S. 439 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
The background begins in 1863 and 1864, when the Civil War Congress enacted and then reenacted the National Bank Act, which launched the modern national banking system by providing for federal chartering of private commercial banks and empowering the newly created national banks to issue and accept a uniform national currency. Act of Feb. 25, 1863, ch. 58, 12 Stat. 665; Act of June 3, 1864, ch. 106, 13 Stat. 99; see E. Symons, Jr., & J. White, Banking Law 22-25 (3d ed. 1991); see also 12 U. S. C. § 38. In a section important for these cases, the National Bank Act set limits on the indebtedness of national banks, subject to certain exceptions. See § 42, 12 Stat. 677 (1863 Act); § 36, 13 Stat. 110 (1864 Act). Ten years later, Congress adopted the indebtedness provision again as part of the Revised Statutes of the United States, a massive revision, reorganization, and reenactment of all statutes in effect at the time, accompanied by a simultaneous repeal of all prior ones. Rev. Stat. §§ 1-5601 (1874); see also Dwan & Feidler, The Federal Statutes—Their History and Use, 22 Minn. L. Rev. 1008, 1012-1015 (1938).4 Title 62 of the Revised Statutes, containing §§ 5133 through 5243, included the Nation's banking laws, and, with a few stylistic alterations, the National Bank Act's indebtedness provision became § 5202 of the Revised Statutes:
Sec. 5202. No association shall at any time be indebted, or in any way liable, to an amount exceeding the amount of its capital stock at such time actually paid
4 The 1874 edition of the Revised Statutes marked the last time Congress codified United States laws by reenacting all of them. An 1878 edition of the Revised Statutes updated the original Revised Statutes, but was not enacted as positive law. See Act of Mar. 9, 1878, ch. 26, 20 Stat. 27; Act of Mar. 2, 1877, ch. 82, 19 Stat. 268. In 1919, the House Committee on the Revision of the Laws of the United States began work on what eventually became the United States Code, the first edition of which was published in 1926. See 44 Stat., pt. 1; Dwan & Feidler, 22 Minn. L. Rev., at 1018-1021.
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