Cite as: 508 U. S. 439 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
intended to change and leaving the rest unaltered, including the portion that had amended Rev. Stat. § 5202.9
In defending the Court of Appeals's contrary conclusion that the 1916 Act amended Rev. Stat. § 5202, respondents argue that any other reading would render meaningless the language in the 1916 Act that purports to amend that section of the Revised Statutes. But the 1916 Congress would have had good reason to carry forward that portion of the 1913 Act containing Rev. Stat. § 5202, even though in 1916 it did not intend to amend it any further. The 1916 Act revised § 13 of the 1913 Act by completely restating it with a mixture of old and new language (providing that § 13 is amended "to read as follows," 39 Stat. 752), and a failure to restate Rev. Stat. § 5202 with its 1913 amendment could have been taken to indicate its repeal.
The final and decisive evidence that the 1916 Act placed section 92 in § 13 of the Federal Reserve Act rather than Rev. Stat. § 5202 is provided by the language and subject matter of section 92 and the paragraphs surrounding it, paragraphs within the same opening and closing quotation marks. In the paragraph preceding section 92, the 1916 Act granted the Federal Reserve Board authority to regulate the
discount and rediscount and the purchase and sale by any Federal reserve bank of any bills receivable and of domestic and foreign bills of exchange, and of acceptances authorized by this Act . . . .
39 Stat. 753 (emphasis added). "[T]his Act" must mean the Federal Reserve Act, since it was § 13 of the Federal Re-9 A comparison of the layout of the two Acts supplies further support for the conclusion that the 1916 Act restated the 1913 Act in full, and did not newly amend Rev. Stat. § 5202. With one exception, a paragraph break separates each of the introductory phrases in the 1916 Act from the text that follows within quotation marks. The exception is the phrase mentioning Rev. Stat. § 5202, the text within quotation marks following on the same line after only a space. That, significantly, is precisely the layout of the amendment to Rev. Stat. § 5202 in § 13 of the 1913 Act.
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