The Third Amendment (Amendment III) to the
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...
places restrictions on the quartering of soldiers in private homes without the owner's consent, forbidding the practice in
peacetime. The amendment is a response to the
Quartering Acts
The Quartering Acts were two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of Britain's North American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny A ...
passed by the
Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...
during the buildup to the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, which had allowed the British Army to lodge soldiers in public buildings.
The Third Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by
James Madison
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for h ...
as a part of the
United States Bill of Rights
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections ra ...
, in response to
Anti-Federalist
Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century political movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Conf ...
objections to the new Constitution. Congress proposed the amendment to the states on September 28, 1789, and by December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had ratified it. Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
announced the adoption of the amendment on March 1, 1792.
The amendment is one of the least controversial of the Constitution and is rarely litigated, with criminal justice writer
Radley Balko calling it the "runt piglet" of the U.S. Constitution. To date, it has never been the primary basis of a Supreme Court decision,
though it was the basis of the
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit case ''
Engblom v. Carey
''Engblom v. Carey'', 677 F.2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), is a landmark decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit interpreting the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution for the first time. It is notable for being ...
'' in 1982.
Text
Background
In 1765, the British parliament enacted the first of the
Quartering Acts
The Quartering Acts were two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of Britain's North American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny A ...
, 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 lodge the troops in alehouses, inns, and livery stables. After the
Boston Tea Party, the Quartering Act of 1774 was enacted. As one of the
Intolerable Acts that pushed the colonies toward revolution, it authorized British troops to be housed wherever necessary, including in private homes.
[Alderman and Kennedy, pp. 107–108] The quartering of troops was cited as one of the colonists' grievances in the
United States Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ( ...
.
Adoption
After several years of comparatively weak government under the
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 Colonies of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate (between July 1776 and November 1777) by ...
, a
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia proposed a new constitution on September 17, 1787, featuring a stronger chief executive and other changes.
George Mason, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the drafter of
Virginia's Declaration of Rights, proposed that a bill of rights listing and guaranteeing
civil liberties
Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties ma ...
be included. Other delegates—including future Bill of Rights drafter
James Madison
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for h ...
—disagreed, arguing that existing state guarantees of civil liberties were sufficient and that any attempt to enumerate individual rights risked implying that other, unnamed rights were unprotected. After a brief debate, Mason's proposal was defeated by a unanimous vote of the state delegations.
For the constitution to be ratified, however, nine of the thirteen states were required to approve it in state conventions. Opposition to ratification ("Anti-Federalism") was partly based on the Constitution's lack of adequate guarantees for civil liberties. Supporters of the Constitution in states where popular sentiment was against ratification (including Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York) successfully proposed that their state conventions both ratify the Constitution and call for the addition of a bill of rights. Several state conventions specifically proposed a provision against the quartering of troops in private homes.
At the 1788
Virginia Ratifying Convention
The Virginia Ratifying Convention (also historically referred to as the "Virginia Federal Convention") was a convention of 168 delegates from Virginia who met in 1788 to ratify or reject the United States Constitution, which had been drafted at ...
,
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first a ...
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."
Proposal and ratification
In the 1st United States Congress, following the state legislatures' request, James Madison proposed twenty constitutional amendments based on state bills of rights and English sources such as the
Bill of Rights 1689; one of these was a prohibition against quartering troops in private homes. Several revisions to the future Third Amendment were proposed in Congress, 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. However, the amendment ultimately passed Congress almost unchanged and by unanimous vote.
Congress reduced Madison's proposed twenty amendments to twelve, and these were submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789.
By the time the Bill of Rights was submitted to the states for ratification, opinions had shifted in both parties. Many Federalists, who had previously opposed a Bill of Rights, now supported the Bill as a means of silencing the Anti-Federalists' most effective criticism. Many Anti-Federalists, in contrast, now opposed it, realizing the Bill's adoption would greatly lessen the chances of a second constitutional convention, which they desired. Anti-Federalists such as
Richard Henry Lee also argued that the Bill left the most objectionable portions of the Constitution, such as the federal judiciary and direct taxation, intact.
On November 20, 1789, New Jersey ratified eleven of the twelve amendments, rejecting
ArticleII, which regulated Congressional pay raises. On December 19 and 22, respectively, Maryland and North Carolina ratified all twelve amendments.
[Labunski, p. 245] On January 19, 25, and 28, 1790, respectively, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Delaware ratified the Bill, though New Hampshire rejected the amendment on Congressional pay raises, and Delaware rejected
ArticleI, which regulated the size of the House.
This brought the total of ratifying states to six of the required ten, but the process stalled in other states: Connecticut and Georgia found a Bill of Rights unnecessary and so refused to ratify, while Massachusetts ratified most of the amendments, but failed to send official notice to the Secretary of State that it had done so.
In February through June 1790, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island ratified eleven of the amendments, though all three rejected the amendment on Congressional pay raises. Virginia initially postponed its debate, but after Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791, the total number of states needed for ratification rose to eleven. Vermont ratified on November 3, 1791, approving all twelve amendments, and Virginia finally followed on December 15, 1791.
Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
announced the adoption of the ten successfully ratified amendments on March 1, 1792.
Judicial interpretation
The Third Amendment is among the least cited sections of the U.S. Constitution.
[Bell, p. 140] In the words of ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', "as the history of the country progressed with little conflict on American soil, the amendment has had little occasion to be invoked." To date, no major Supreme Court decision has used the amendment as its primary basis.
The legal historian Tom W. Bell argued in 1993 that the quartering of American soldiers during the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...
and
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
violated the Third Amendment, but this argument was never presented in court during either war. Following the Civil War, the Army compensated property owners for rent and damages, which may have preempted Third Amendment claims.
The Third Amendment has been invoked in a few instances as helping establish an implicit right to privacy in the Constitution.
Justice
William O. Douglas used the amendment along with others in the Bill of Rights as a partial basis for the majority decision in ''
Griswold v. Connecticut'' (1965), which cited the Third Amendment as implying a belief that an individual's home should be free from agents of the state.
In one of the seven opinions in ''
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer'' (1952), Justice
Robert H. Jackson
Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954. He had previously served as Unit ...
cited the Third Amendment as providing evidence of the
Framers' intent to constrain executive power even during wartime:
[Amar, p. 62]
at 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... en in war time, his seizure of needed military housing must be authorized by Congress.
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
''Engblom v. Carey'', 677 F.2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), is a landmark decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit interpreting the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution for the first time. It is notable for being ...
'' (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
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...
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 are "soldiers" for purposes of the Third Amendment, and (3) that the Third Amendment is
incorporated (applies to the states) by virtue of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The case was remanded to the district court, which dismissed it on the grounds that state officials could not have been aware of this interpretation.
In the most recent Third Amendment decision handed down by a federal court, on February 2, 2015, the
United States District Court for the District of Nevada held in ''Mitchell v. City of Henderson'' that the Third Amendment does not apply to intrusions by municipal police officers as, despite their appearance and equipment, they are not soldiers. For his claims under the Third Amendment, Mitchell had alleged that the police used his house as a lookout point.
In an earlier case, ''United States v. Valenzuela'' (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 AmendmentIII of the United States Constitution." The court declined his request. Later, in ''Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense'' (1972), Army reservists unsuccessfully cited the Third Amendment as justification for refusing to march in a parade. Similar arguments in a variety of contexts have been denied in other cases.
[Bell, pp. 141–42]
See also
*
Dragonnades
The ''Dragonnades'' were a French government policy instituted by King Louis XIV in 1681 to intimidate Huguenot (Protestant) families into converting to Catholicism. This involved the billeting of ill-disciplined dragoons in Protestant household ...
*
List of amendments to the United States Constitution
*
Quartering Acts
The Quartering Acts were two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of Britain's North American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny A ...
References
;Notes
;Citations
;Bibliography
* Alderman, Ellen and Caroline Kennedy (1991). ''In Our Defense''. Avon.
* Amar, Akhil Reed (1998). ''The Bill of Rights''. Yale University Press.
* Beeman, Richard (2009). ''Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution''. Random House.
* Bell, Tom W. (1993)
The Third Amendment: Forgotten but Not Gone. ''William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal'' 2.1: pp. 117–150.
* Labunski, Richard E. (2006). ''James Madison and the struggle for the Bill of Rights''. Oxford University Press.
* Wood, Gordon S. (2009). ''Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815''. Oxford University Press.
External links
National Constitution Center: Amendment III
{{Authority control
1791 in American law
1791 in American politics
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