Legalese

Okay, we all know the Homestead Act is a legal document setting out rights, rules, and restrictions about homesteading in the West. There’s no getting around the fact that legal documents are tinder-dry (no, not Tinder dry) and not quite as clear as they should be.

And let’s not forget each section is only one sentence. That’s a lot of caveats and addendums to a pretty basic directive of "work the land for five years and it’s yours." But more words = more official.

Let’s take a look.

And be it further enacted, That if, at any time after the filing of the affidavit, as required in the second section of this act, and before the expiration of the five years aforesaid, it shall be proven, after due notice to the settler, to the satisfaction of the register of the land office, that the person having filed such affidavit shall have actually changed his or her residence, or abandoned the said land for more than six months at any time, then and in that event the land so entered shall revert to the government. (Section 5)

Breaking down Section 5 as an example, Congress threw in quite a few flourishes like "be it further enacted" to make it sound more like an official proclamation. Oh, those crazy 19th-century politicians.

Then again, they were going off of precedent in how laws were phrased throughout the history of the country.

Tradition. It can be a bit of a burden.

Passive voice is key here, with each section providing a list of hypothetical future situations. Section 5 lays out how a claim is forfeit (and what happens then) without actually being active voice. "[…] it shall be proven[…]" is a beautiful example of the removed writing style Congress used to just layout guidelines.