Amendment III to the U.S. Constitution

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The Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Ratified in 1791, the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sets forth two basic requirements. During times of peace, the military may not house its troops in private residences without the consent of the owners. During times of war, the military may not house its troops in private residences except in accordance with established legal procedure. By placing these limitations on the private quartering of combatants, the Third Amendment subordinates military authority to civilian control and safeguards against abuses that can be perpetrated by standing armies and professional soldiers.

The Third Amendment traces its roots to English law. In 1689 the English Bill of Rights prohibited the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace without the consent of Parliament. Less than a century later Parliament passed the Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774, which authorized British troops to take shelter in colonial homes by military fiat. During the American Revolution, British Red Coats frequently relied on this authorization, making themselves unwelcome guests at private residences throughout the colonies. By 1776 the Declaration of Independence was assailing the king of England for quartering "large bodies of troops among us" and keeping "standing armies without the consent of our legislature."

Against this backdrop, a number of colonies enacted laws prohibiting the nonconsensual quartering of soldiers. The Delaware Declaration of Rights of 1776, for example, provided that "no soldier ought to be quartered in any house in time of peace without the consent of the owner, and in time of war in such a manner only as the legislature shall direct." Similar expressions also appeared in the Maryland Declaration of Rights of 1776, the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights of 1780, and the New Hampshire Bill of Rights of 1784. Originally drafted by James Madison in 1789, the Third Amendment embodies the spirit and intent of its colonial antecedents.

Primarily because the United States has not been regularly confronted by standing armies during its history, the Third Amendment has produced little litigation. The Supreme Court has never had occasion to decide a case based solely on the Third Amendment, though the Court has cited its protections against the quartering of soldiers as a basis for the constitutional right to privacy (see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 [1965]). In lower federal courts, Third Amendment claims typically have been rejected without much discussion.

However, in 1982 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued the seminal interpretation of the Third Amendment in Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (1982). Engblom raised the issue of whether the state of New York had violated the Third Amendment by housing members of the National Guard at the residences of two correctional officers who were living in a dormitory on the grounds of a state penitentiary. The governor had activated the guard to quell disorder at the penitentiary during a protracted labor strike. Although the Second Circuit court did not decide whether the Third Amendment had been violated, it made three other important rulings. First, the court ruled that under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Third Amendment applies to action taken by the state governments no less than it applies to actions by the federal government. Second, the court ruled that the two correctional officers were "owners" of their residences for the purposes of the Third Amendment, even though they were renting their dormitory room from the state of New York. Any person who lawfully possesses or controls a particular dwelling, the court said, enjoys a reasonable expectation of privacy in that dwelling that precludes the nonconsensual quartering of soldiers. Third, the court ruled that members of the National Guard are "soldiers" governed by the strictures of the Third Amendment. No federal court has had the opportunity to reexamine these Third Amendment issues since Engblom.

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See: Bill of Rights; incorporation doctrine.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

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The Bill of Rights in the National Archives

The Third Amendment (Amendment III) to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights. It was introduced on September 5, 1789, and then three quarters of the states ratified this as well as 9 other amendments on December 15, 1791. It prohibits, in peacetime, the quartering of soldiers in private homes without the owner's consent. It makes quartering legally permissible in wartime only, but only according to law.

Contents 1 Text 2 History 3 Case law 3.1 Right to privacy 3.2 Limitation on executive power 3.3 Directly relevant case law 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Text

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

History

Text of the amendment echoed the English Bill of Rights 1689 which stated the late King James the Second ... did endeavour to subvert and extirpate ... the laws and liberties of this kingdom ... by raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace without consent of Parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law.

In 1765, the British parliament enacted the first of the Quartering Acts, requiring the American colonies to pay the costs of British soldiers serving in the colonies, and requiring that if the local barracks provided insufficient space, that the colonists provide space for the troops to live in alehouses, inns, and livery stables. After the Boston Tea Party, the Quartering Act of 1774 was enacted; it was one of the Intolerable Acts that pushed the colonies toward revolution. The later Quartering Act authorized British troops to be quartered wherever necessary, including in private homes.^[1]

For that reason, the quartering of troops was cited as a grievance in the United States Declaration of Independence: [King George III] has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: ...For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

At the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention, when debating the ratification of the new United States Constitution, Patrick Henry stated, "One of our first complaints, under the former government, was the quartering of troops among us. This was one of the principal reasons for dissolving the connection with Great Britain. Here we may have troops in time of peace. They may be billeted in any manner — to tyrannize, oppress, and crush us."^[1] Henry was objecting to the Constitution's lack of adequate guarantees of civil liberties.^[2] Later, following the recommendation of the convention, the Third Amendment, along with the others that now form the Bill of Rights, was proposed by Congress on September 25, 1789. The adoption by ratification by three-fourths of the states was completed on December 15, 1791.^[3]

Several revisions were proposed before its adoption, which chiefly differed in the way in which peace and war were distinguished (including the possibility of a situation, such as unrest, which was neither peace nor war), and whether the executive or the legislature would have the authority to authorize quartering.^[4]

Case law

The Third Amendment is among the least cited sections of the U.S. Constitution.^[4] There have been no major Supreme Court cases concerning violations of the Third Amendment, mainly because the quartering problem has not recurred since the American Revolution.

Right to privacy

Some Supreme Court justices have occasionally invoked the Third Amendment when seeking to establish a base for the right to privacy. For example, the Opinion of the Court by Justice William O. Douglas in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965) cites the amendment as implying a belief that an individual's home should be free from agents of the state.^[4]

Limitation on executive power

In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer 343 U.S. 579, 644 (1952), Justice Robert H. Jackson's concurring opinion cites the Third Amendment as providing evidence of the Framers' intent to constrain executive power even during wartime: "[t]hat military powers of the Commander in Chief were not to supersede representative government of internal affairs seems obvious from the Constitution and from elementary American history. Time out of mind, and even now in many parts of the world, a military commander can seize private housing to shelter his troops. Not so, however, in the United States, for the Third Amendment says...[E]ven in war time, his seizure of needed military housing must be authorized by Congress."

Directly relevant case law

One of the few times a federal court was asked to invalidate a law or action on Third Amendment grounds was in Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2d. Cir. 1982). In 1979, prison officials in New York organized a strike; they were evicted from their prison facility residences, which were reassigned to members of the National Guard who had temporarily taken their place as prison guards. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled: (1) that the term owner in the Third Amendment includes tenants (paralleling similar cases regarding the Fourth Amendment, governing search and seizure), (2) National Guard troops count as soldiers for the purposes of the Third Amendment, and (3) that the Third Amendment is incorporated (that is, that it applies to the states) by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment.^[4]

In an earlier case, United States v. Valenzuela, 95 F. Supp. 363 (S.D. Cal. 1951), the defendant asked that a federal rent-control law be struck down because it was "the incubator and hatchery of swarms of bureaucrats to be quartered as storm troopers upon the people in violation of Amendment III of the United States Constitution." The court declined his request. Later, in Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense, 346 F. Supp. 97 (D. Minn. 1972), Army reservists cited the Third Amendment as justification for sitting out a parade. Similarly far-fetched arguments in a variety of contexts have also been denied in a number of court cases.^[4] Thus, Engblom v. Carey remains the only significant Third Amendment case law.

See also

• Quartering Acts

References

1. ^ ^{a b} In Our Defense, Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy, pp. 107-108, published by Avon Books, 1991.
2. ^ Mount, Steve. "Constitutional Topic: The Constitutional Convention". http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_ccon.html#brights. Retrieved 4 April 2011. 
3. ^ "Declaration of Independence". The History Channel website. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bill-of-rights-is-finally-ratified. Retrieved 4 April 2011. 
4. ^ ^{a b c d e} Tom W. Bell, The Third Amendment: Forgotten but Not Gone, 2 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. 117 (1993)

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Third Amendment of the full text Constitution of the United States of America

• Kilman, Johnny and George Costello (Eds). (2000). The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation.
• CRS Annotated Constitution: Third Amendment

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