Let's be real, bills and legal documents aren't known for being pioneers of prose (Shmoop, on the other hand…). The goal of such texts isn't to entertain, but to lay out information so that peopl...

For most of the Compromise of 1850, the author doesn't shy away from the word "slave" or "slavery". The text refers to how states "shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as thei...

Henry Clay and Congress loved the semicolon. The Compromise has approximately 10,000 of them (give or take a few). Many of the sections are just one or two epically long sentences. Take this one, f...