18th-Century Legalese

Ever turn an essay into a teacher and get the dreaded highlighter with a note that says "run-on"? We all have.

Except, apparently, the Founding Fathers. It's like these guys only finished a sentence when they ran out of breath. Every single one has so many clauses, sub-clauses, and sub-sub-clauses, it's easy to get lost.

Want an example? Here goes:

And the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized, in any event, as aforesaid, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, towards the aliens who shall become liable, as aforesaid; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject, and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those, who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, shall refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which shall be found necessary in the premises and for the public safety: Provided, that aliens resident within the United States, who shall become liable as enemies, in the manner aforesaid, and who shall not be chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety, shall be allowed, for the recovery, disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for their departure, the full time which is, or shall be stipulated by any treaty, where any shall have been between the United States, and the hostile nation or government, of which they shall be natives, citizens, denizens or subjects: and where no such treaty shall have existed, the President of the United States may ascertain and declare such reasonable time as may be consistent with the public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality. (Enemies.1)

That's one sentence.

What it actually means is that the President can watch immigrants from hostile countries and decide what should be done with them and their stuff. That's it.

The intent isn't to hide the meaning. They weren't writing these laws in terror that they'd fall into the hands of the enemy. This is just how people wrote legal documents. The idea is to remove ambiguity and to account for any possible loopholes beforehand. That way the law says exactly what the writer wants it to. No more, no less.

Now they look like walls of text that barely qualify as English. One thing to bear in mind is that to the standard citizen of the time, this style of writing would have been nearly as baffling. The Founding Fathers were a bunch of rich, landowning lawyers. They were hardly the common individual, and the way they wrote reflects that.