What Amendment in the Bill of Rights has never been changed?

Answer 1

No amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America has ever been changed. Nothing in the text has ever been changed. One amendment, the 18th establishing prohibition has been repealed but it remains a part of the Constitution. A few amendments have made changes to the constitution which have made parts of the text obsolete. For example, one amendment changed the rules on the election of presidents.

Answer 2

The Third Amendment has never been directly addressed in a US Supreme Court case.

"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."


In fact, the Third Amendment is one of the least cited parts of the Bill of Rights, and was only included because England's practice of housing British soldiers in private homes was denounced in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, this grievance against King George is considered one of the fundamental causes of the Revolutionary War.

It is not clear whether the United States violated the Third Amendment during the War of 1812 and the Civil War, when it required US citizens to house troops, because virtually no legal action arose from the practice.

There is only one relatively significant federal case that rests on the terms of the Third Amendment, Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2d. c. 1982). In Engblom, a group of New York state prison corrections officers were unceremoniously evicted from prison housing at Mid-Orange Correctional Facility when they staged a strike. Their residences were subsequently used to house members of the National Guard. Two corrections officers argued that their Third Amendment rights had been violated, but the courts granted defendants' (a variety of New York government officials) motion for summary judgment and dismissed the case on the grounds that the Plaintiffs had no standing because the homes belonged to the prison. This case never reached the US Supreme Court.

In United States v. Valenzuela, 95 F.Supp 363 (S.D. Cal. 1951), Valenzuela attempted to argue federal rent control laws violated Third Amendment rights, but the court dismissed his suit.

Justice William O. Douglas briefly cited the Third Amendment in his opinion for Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965) as an instance where the Framer's intended to protect individuals' right to privacy. Griswold challenged the states' rights to restrict use of birth control for married couples.