Quartering Act
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Quartering Act is the name of at least two acts of the Parliament of Great Britain.
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[edit] Quartering Act of 1765
Thomas Gage, the commander in Chief of British North American forces, and other British officers who had fought in the French and Indian War, had found it difficult to get colonial assemblies to pay for quartering and provisioning of troops on the march and he asked Parliament to do something about it. Most of the colonies had provided provisions during war time, but the issue was disputed in peacetime. The Province of New York assembly passed an act to provide for the quartering of British regulars, but that act expired on January 1, 1764.[1]The result was the Quartering Act of 1765, which went far beyond what Gage had requested. The colonies considered this Act taxation without representation since the colonies had not requested the troops.
This first Quartering Act (citation 5 Geo. III c. 33) occurred on 15 May 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, victualling 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"... "upon neglect or refusal of such governor and council in any province", required any inhabitants (or in their absence, public officials) to provide them with food and alcohol, and providing for "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, and utensils" for the soldiers "without paying any thing for the same".
When 1,500 British troops arrived at New York City in 1766 the New York Assembly refused to comply with the Quartering Act and failed to supply billeting for the troops. The troops had to remain on their ships. For failure to comply with the Quartering Act, Parliament suspended the Province of New York's Governor and legislature in 1767 and 1769. In 1771, the New York Assembly allocated funds for the quartering of the British troops.
The act was circumvented in all colonies other than Pennsylvania.
This act expired on March 24, 1767.
[edit] Quartering Act of 1774
A second Quartering Act was passed on June 2, 1774, as part of a group of laws that colonists called the Intolerable Acts. The acts were designed to restore imperial control over the American colonies. While several of the acts dealt specifically with the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the new Quartering Act applied to all of the colonies.
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.
While many sources claim that the 1774 act allowed troops to be billeted in occupied private homes, this is a myth. The act only permitted troops to be quartered in unoccupied buildings. "It did not, as generations of American school children were taught, permit the housing of troops in private homes."[2] Although many colonists found the Quartering Act objectionable, it generated the least protest of the Intolerable Acts.[3]
During the American Revolutionary War, the New York Provincial Congress barracked Continental Army troops in private homes.[4]
This act expired on March 24, 1776.
[edit] Modern relevance
- 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 one case in 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 considered to have been tools for oppression.
- The Quartering Act is indirectly referred to in the New York State Constitution: "He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures."
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Ammerman, David, "The Tea Crisis and its Consequences, through 1775", in Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole, eds., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1999)
- Kammen, Michael, Colonial New York, A History, 1975, ISBN 0684143259
- Ketchum, Richard, Divided Loyalties, How the American Revolution Came to New York, 2002, ISBN 0-8050-6120-7
- Schecter, Barnet, The Battle of New York, 2002, ISBN 0802713742
[edit] External links
- Text of the Act of 1765
- Text of the Act of 1774de:Quartering Act
es:Ley del Alojamiento fr:Quartering Act
