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 people know what to do and what the rules are.

The Compromise repeats things in a couple ways. Mostly, there are phrases that come up over and over, primarily "And be it further enacted," which begins pretty much every part of the law. Although the language probably feels a little old-fashioned, this was 1850 after all, and it was really meant to be practical. These laws need to be enacted—so be them enacted.

The overall effect is that you really feel like you're reading a list of laws—which you are, so that's handy. The phrase marks the beginning of a new section, and alerts you to the fact that you're about to read a new rule. With so much happening in one bill, and so many new laws, the repeated phrase helps with clarity.

The other part that gets repeated is an entire section. The bills about New Mexico and Utah are almost identical, once you get past the Texas section of the New Mexico bill.

It starts with. "And be it further enacted, That the executive power and authority in and over said Territory of New Mexico shall be vested in a governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States." (Texas.Section 3.1)

Now let's look at Utah: "And be it further enacted, That the executive power and authority in and over said Territory of Utah shall be vested in a governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States." (Utah.Section 2.1)

Déjà vu yet?

If you want to get into the deep cuts, here are more examples: "And the members of the Council and of the House of Representatives shall reside in, and be inhabitants of, the district for which they may be elected respectively" (Utah.Section 4.6) versus "And the members of the Council and of the House of Representatives shall reside in, and be inhabitants of, the district for which they may be elected respectively." (Texas.Section 5.6)

We could go on, but no one would enjoy it. You get the idea.

So why are these two sections exactly the same? These two bills are aiming to accomplish the same thing: taking newly won land and forming territorial governments. The U.S. had specific ways it wanted state governments to be formed, which apply to all states. So the rules for both territories were the same. Again, clarity is of high importance here, so getting creative with the language for the sake of being interesting could potentially lead to confusion and ambiguity.

Also remember that these bills ended up getting passed separately, and the New Mexico bill was tucked in with the Texas bill. So in the end, they couldn't just combine all the rules into one.

Deep thought: maybe the writers of the legislation were so dry and repetitive because they were trying to put the other senators to sleep so they wouldn't notice what huge compromises they were making. Like having to be drafted into slave-chasing posses.