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, for example:

And be it further enacted, That the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents. (Texas.Section 7.1)

That's not even the longest one. Go check out our "Writing Style" section to see a real doozy.

It's a quirk of legislative writing that you will probably come across in other similar documents. The writers are really more concerned with getting every little detail and situation covered, rather than adhering to MLA standards for sentence structure. Or your eighth-grade English teacher's standards.

It doesn't have to win a Pulitzer. It does have to convey a whole lot of information.