“They constituted a horrific, shameful episode in American history, one of the lowest moments for liberty since King George III quartered troops in private homes.”
I don’t think the author understood the Quartering Act; troops sent to protect the colonists themselves from Indian raids (and a decade earlier, the French as well) needed somewhere to stay. The colonists eventually tired of it as the last French & Indian War became a memory, but like many of the taxes caused by the war it was a measure which benefited the colonists themselves. A few decades later, the War of 1812 showed how the Indian threat had not disappeared altogether.
I wouldn’t like it (seen through the prism of modern times), but at the time it was an understandable measure.
Quartering troops in houses was reasonable and Palmer is a hero. The FR brigade that aches for righteous authoritarianism is awake this morning I see.