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Grievance #14 of the Declaration of Independence

What if soldiers could show up and expect you to feed and house them?

In Grievance #14 of the Declaration of Independence, C. David Carlson from Trinity Academy South Bend explains why colonists were outraged by the British Quartering Acts.

Passed in 1765 and again in 1774, these laws required colonists to provide food and shelter for British troops stationed in America. While soldiers weren’t typically placed directly inside private homes, colonists still had to support what many increasingly viewed as an occupying force.

At a time when tensions with Britain were already exploding, being forced to house and supply soldiers only made things worse.

This grievance became so important that it later inspired the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits the quartering of soldiers in private homes.

This is Part 14 of our 27-part series breaking down every grievance that led to the American Revolution, building toward Independence Day.

0:00 For quartering large bodies of armed

0:02 troops among us. In 1765 and then again

0:06 as part of the Intolerable Acts in 1774,

0:09 British Parliament passed quartering

0:11 acts designed to maintain the regular

0:12 forces in the American colonies. The act

0:15 stipulated North American colonists

0:17 themselves could legally be made to

0:19 provide shelter and food at their own

0:22 expense for the support of what many

0:25 colonists increasingly saw as a hostile

0:28 occupying force of British soldiers.

0:30 Now, according to the act, the colonists

0:33 were to furnish otherwise uninhabited

0:34 buildings like barns for the shelter.

0:37 And so Parliament hadn’t really intended

0:39 to force colonists to take British

0:41 soldiers into their own main residences.

0:43 But even so, we can well imagine the

0:45 irritation colonists would have felt at

0:48 having to provide free food and free

0:51 lodging at any time, let alone during a

0:53 crisis spiraling toward open hostility.

0:57 Now, if you know your Bill of Rights,

0:59 you may have wondered, like many of my

1:01 students, why they included Amendment

1:03 III to the Constitution, which states,

1:05 "No soldier shall in time of peace be

1:07 quartered in any house without the

1:09 consent of the owner, nor in time of

1:11 war, but in a manner to be prescribed by

1:13 law." The Quartering Acts cited in

1:16 grievance 14 of the Declaration of

1:18 Independence in fact inspired that

1:20 amendment, although the amendment has

1:22 rarely come up in the courts.

1:25 So far.

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