Quartering Acts

The Quartering Act is the name of at least two 18th-century Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain. These Quartering Acts ordered the local governments of the American colonies to provide housing and provisions for British soldiers. They were amendments to the Mutiny Act, which had to be renewed annually by Parliament. Originally intended as a response to problems that arose during Britain's victory in the Seven Years War they later became a source of tension between inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies and the government in London.

Quartering Act of 1765

Lieutenant-General Thomas Gage, commander-in-chief of forces in British North America, and other British officers who had fought in the French and Indian War, had found it hard to persuade colonial assemblies to pay for quartering and provisioning of troops on the march, this Act was part of the Intolerable Acts. The purpose of these laws was to take back hold of the colonies. Therefore, he asked Parliament to do something. Most colonies had supplied provisions during the war, but the issue was disputed in peacetime. The Province of New York was their headquarters, because the assembly had passed an Act to provide for the quartering of British regulars, but it expired on January 2, 1764, The result was the Quartering Act of 1765, which went far beyond what Gage had requested. The colonies disputed the legality of this Act since it seemed to violate the Bill of Rights 1689, which forbid taxation without representation and the raising or keeping of a standing army without the consent of Parliament. No standing army had been kept in the colonies before the French and Indian War, so the colonies asked why a standing army was needed after the French had been defeated.

This first Quartering Act (citation 5 Geo. III c. 33) was given Royal Assent on March 24, 1765, and provided that Great Britain would house its soldiers in American barracks and public houses, as by the Mutiny Act of 1765, but if its soldiers outnumbered the housing available, would quarter them "in inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualing houses, and the houses of sellers of wine and houses of persons selling of rum, brandy, strong water, cider or metheglin", and if numbers required in "uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings." Colonial authorities were required to pay the cost of housing and feeding these troops.

When 1,500 British troops arrived at New York City in 1766 the New York Provincial Assembly refused to comply with the Quartering Act and did not supply billeting for the troops. The troops had to remain on their ships. With its great impact on the city, a skirmish occurred in which one colonist was wounded following the Assembly's refusal to provide quartering,. For failure to comply with the Quartering Act, Parliament suspended the Province of New York's Governor and legislature in 1767 and 1769, but never carried it out, since the Assembly soon agreed to contribute money toward the quartering of troops; the New York Assembly allocated funds for the quartering of British troops in 1771.

The Quartering Act was circumvented in all colonies other than Pennsylvania.

This Act expired on March 24, 1767.

Quartering Act of 1774

A second Quartering Act (citation 14 Geo. III c. 54) was passed on June 2, 1774. In the previous Act, the colonies had been required to provide housing for soldiers, but colonial legislatures had been uncooperative in doing so. The new Quartering Act similarly allowed a governor to house soldiers in other buildings if suitable quarters were not provided, but it did not have the provision in the previous Act that soldiers be provided with provisions. This Act expired on March 24, 1776.

Quartering in time of War

During the French and Indian War Britain had forcibly seized quarters in private dwellings. In the American Revolutionary War, the New York Provincial Congress barracked Continental Army troops in private homes.

Modern relevance

• A section of the United States Declaration of Independence listing the colonies' grievances against the King explicitly notes:

He has combined with people others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

• The Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, expressly prohibited the military from peacetime quartering of troops without consent of the owner of the house. A product of their times, the relevance of the Acts and the Third Amendment has greatly declined since the era of the American Revolution, having been the subject of only one case in over 200 years (Engblom v. Carey).

• The Quartering Act was one of the reasons for the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which authorized a militia. Standing armies were mistrusted, and the First Congress considered quartering of troops to have been one of the tools of oppression before and during the American revolution.

See also

• Dragonnade
• The Mutiny Acts

References

• Ammerman, David (1999). "The Tea Crisis and its Consequences, through 1775". In Greene, Jack P.; Pole, J. R.. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. 
• Kammen, Michael (1975). Colonial New York, A History. ISBN 0684143259. 
• Ketchum, Richard (2002). Divided Loyalties, How the American Revolution Came to New York. ISBN 0-8050-6120-7. 
• Schecter, Barnet (2002). The Battle of New York. ISBN 0802713742. 

External links

• Text of the Act of 1765
• Text of the Act of 1774