Now, this being a legal text, the opening line is actually all of Section 1. Each section, through the crazy, legalese-y use of semicolons, colons, and commas, is a single sentence…and usually with multiple subjects.

Hemingway, this ain't.

Section 1, however, does lay it right out:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and. sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands[…] (Section 1)

It clearly states who, what, where, and when regarding homesteaders and homesteading. So, it’s in legalese, but at least it’s clear right off the bat what the rest of the document is going to be talking about.