He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our legislatures.

This practice was a violation of the principle that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Moreover, standing armies had long been regarded, in both England and America, as a danger that required the closest supervision of the people. In A Summary View of the Rights of British America, Jefferson wrote that if the King did indeed have the right to keep standing armies in the colonies during times of peace without America's consent, such a right "might swallow up all our other rights whenever he should think proper." At the end of the Seven Years' War with France, English troops were not withdrawn from the colonies. Indeed, the Quartering Act, passed by the British government in 1765, made the colonies liable for supporting the troops.