Congress Tells the Railroads to Let the Animals Off

On March 3, 1873, Congress passed the Twenty-Eight Hour Law, barring railroads from confining cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals in transit for more than 28 consecutive hours without unloading them for at least five hours of food, water, and rest. Lawmakers had been debating the bill since 1871, pushed less by pure sympathy for animals than by Northeastern farmers worried about railroad-fed competition and public health officials still rattled by reports of soldiers eating diseased meat during the Civil War. It became the first federal statute in U.S. history written to protect animals, though for over a decade no agency existed to enforce it. That gap closed in 1884, when Congress created the USDA's Bureau of Animal Industry.