Gourt Home::Gourt :: Quartering Act
Quartering Act is the name of at least two Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain.
Act of 1765
This first Act (citation 5 Geo. III c. 33) occurred on 24 March 1765, and provided that Great Britain would house its soldiers in America first in 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, victuallinghouses, and the houses of sellers of wine * and houses of persons selling of rum, brandy, strong water, cyder or metheglin", and if numbers required in "uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings", requiring 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". This act was finally repealed in 1770.
Act of 1774
The second Quartering Act, established June 2, 1774, was one of the measures that comprised the Coercive acts (alternately known as the Punatory acts or Intolerable Acts), that were designed to secure the Britain's jurisdiction over her Thirteen colonies
Modern relevance
Both Acts led directly to the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which expressly prohibited the military from quartering 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).
External links
Laws leading to the American Revolution | Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain
"Quartering Act"