Which Amendment Protects Citizens From Being Forced to House Troops

1791 subpoena restricting quartering of soldiers in individual homes

The
Third Amendment
(Amendment Three) to the United States Constitution places restrictions on the quartering of soldiers in private homes without the owner’due south consent, forbidding the do in peacetime. The amendment is a response to the Quartering Acts passed past the British parliament during the buildup to the American Revolutionary War, which had allowed the British Army to social club soldiers in public buildings.

The Third Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison as a role of the United States Bill of Rights, in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution. Congress proposed the subpoena to the states on September 28, 1789, and by December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of us had ratified it. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the subpoena on March 1, 1792.

The subpoena is one of the least controversial of the Constitution and is rarely litigated, with criminal justice writer Radley Balko calling information technology the “runt piglet” of the U.S. Constitution.^[i]
To date, it has never been the primary ground of a Supreme Court conclusion,^[ii]
[3]
[4]
though it was the ground of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit instance
Engblom 5. Carey
in 1982.

Text

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The complete text of the amendment:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any business firm, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of state of war, but in a mode to be prescribed by police force.^[5]

Background

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In 1765, the British parliament enacted the first of the Quartering Acts,^[half-dozen]
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 social club the troops in alehouses, inns, and livery stables. Later the Boston Tea Political party, the Quartering Deed of 1774 was enacted. Equally one of the Intolerable Acts that pushed the colonies toward revolution, information technology authorized British troops to exist housed wherever necessary, including in private homes.^[7]
The quartering of troops was cited as one of the colonists’ grievances in the United States Declaration of Independence.^[3]

Adoption

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After several years of insufficiently weak government under the Articles of Confederation, a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia proposed a new constitution on September 17, 1787, featuring a stronger chief executive and other changes. George Mason, a Ramble Convention delegate and the drafter of Virginia’due south Declaration of Rights, proposed that a beak of rights listing and guaranteeing civil liberties be included. Other delegates—including time to come Bill of Rights drafter James Madison—disagreed, arguing that existing country guarantees of civil liberties were sufficient and that any effort to enumerate individual rights risked implying that other, unnamed rights were unprotected. Later a brief argue, Mason’s proposal was defeated past a unanimous vote of the state delegations.^[viii]

For the constitution to be ratified, however, nine of the xiii states were required to corroborate information technology in country 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 pop sentiment was confronting ratification (including Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York) successfully proposed that their country conventions both ratify the Constitution and telephone call for the addition of a bill of rights. Several land conventions specifically proposed a provision against the quartering of troops in private homes.^[3]
At the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention, Patrick Henry stated, “Ane of our offset complaints, under the former regime, was the quartering of troops among u.s.a.. This was i of the principal reasons for dissolving the connexion with Britain. Hither nosotros may have troops in fourth dimension of peace. They may be billeted in any style—to tyrannize, oppress, and beat us.”^[seven]

Proposal and ratification

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In the 1st The states Congress, following the state legislatures’ request, James Madison proposed 20 constitutional amendments based on country bills of rights and English sources such as the Bill of Rights 1689; one of these was a prohibition against quartering troops in individual homes. Several revisions to the futurity Tertiary Amendment were proposed in Congress, which chiefly differed in the way in which peace and state of war were distinguished (including the possibility of a situation, such equally unrest, which was neither peace nor war), and whether the executive or the legislature would have the authority to qualify quartering.^[9]
However, the amendment ultimately passed Congress nigh unchanged and by unanimous vote.^[3]
Congress reduced Madison’s proposed twenty amendments to twelve, and these were submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789.^[10]

Past the time the Beak of Rights was submitted to usa for ratification, opinions had shifted in both parties. Many Federalists, who had previously opposed a Bill of Rights, at present supported the Bill as a means of silencing the Anti-Federalists’ virtually effective criticism. Many Anti-Federalists, in contrast, at present opposed information technology, realizing the Bill’s adoption would greatly lessen the chances of a second ramble convention, which they desired.^[11]
Anti-Federalists such as Richard Henry Lee also argued that the Bill left the about objectionable portions of the Constitution, such every bit the federal judiciary and direct taxation, intact.^[12]

On Nov 20, 1789, New Jersey ratified eleven of the twelve amendments, rejecting ArticleTwo, which regulated Congressional pay raises. On December 19 and 22, respectively, Maryland and North Carolina ratified all twelve amendments.^[thirteen]
On January xix, 25, and 28, 1790, respectively, Southward 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.^[13]
This brought the total of ratifying states to half-dozen of the required 10, but the process stalled in other states: Connecticut and Georgia found a Bill of Rights unnecessary and then refused to ratify, while Massachusetts ratified near of the amendments, just failed to ship official notice to the Secretary of State that it had done so.^[12]
[a]

In February through June 1790, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Isle ratified eleven of the amendments, though all three rejected the subpoena on Congressional pay raises. Virginia initially postponed its contend, only after Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791, the full number of states needed for ratification rose to eleven. Vermont ratified on November iii, 1791, approving all twelve amendments, and Virginia finally followed on December 15, 1791.^[12]
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the ten successfully ratified amendments on March 1, 1792.^[xiv]

Judicial interpretation

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The Third Amendment is among the least cited sections of the U.South. Constitution.^[15]
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.”^[16]
To date, no major Supreme Courtroom decision has used the amendment as its chief footing.^[three]
[4]

The Third Amendment has been invoked in a few instances equally helping establish an implicit right to privacy in the Constitution.^[17]
Justice William O. Douglas used the amendment forth with others in the Pecker of Rights every bit a fractional basis for the majority decision in
Griswold five. Connecticut
(1965),^[18]
which cited the Tertiary Amendment as implying a conventionalities that an individual’s home should exist complimentary from agents of the country.^[17]

In i of the seven opinions in
Youngstown Canvass & Tube Co. 5. Sawyer
(1952), Justice Robert H. Jackson cited the Third Subpoena as providing evidence of the Framers’ intent to constrain executive power even during wartime:^[17]

[t]hat military powers of the Commander in Master 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 earth, a armed services commander can seize private housing to shelter his troops. Non so, even so, in the United States, for the Third Amendment says… [E]ven in war time, his seizure of needed military housing must be authorized past Congress.^[19]

1 of the few times a federal courtroom was asked to invalidate a police or activity on Third Amendment grounds was in
Engblom 5. Carey
(1982).^[20]
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 identify every bit prison guards. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled: (ane) that the term
owner
in the Third Amendment includes tenants (paralleling like cases regarding the Fourth Amendment, governing search and seizure), (2) National Guard troops are “soldiers” for purposes of the 3rd Amendment, and (3) that the Third Amendment is incorporated (applies to united states) by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment.^[21]
The case was remanded to the district court, which dismissed it on the grounds that state officials could non have been enlightened of this estimation.^[22]

In the virtually recent Third Subpoena conclusion handed down by a federal court, on February ii, 2015, the Us District Court for the Commune of Nevada held in
Mitchell 5. Urban center of Henderson
that the Third Subpoena does non utilise to intrusions past municipal constabulary officers as, despite their appearance and equipment, they are not soldiers.^[23]
For his claims under the Tertiary Subpoena, Mitchell had alleged that the police used his business firm every bit a lookout indicate.^[24]

In an before instance,
United states of america v. Valenzuela
(1951),^[25]
the accused asked that a federal hire-control law exist 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.”^[26]
The court declined his asking. Subsequently, in
Jones five. United States Secretarial assistant of Defense
(1972),^[27]
Army reservists unsuccessfully cited the Third Amendment as justification for refusing to march in a parade. Similar arguments in a variety of contexts accept been denied in other cases.^[28]

Meet also

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• Dragonnades
• List of amendments to the United States Constitution
• Quartering Acts

References

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Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Alderman, Ellen and Caroline Kennedy (1991).
  In Our Defence. Avon.
• Amar, Akhil Reed (1998).
  The Beak of Rights. Yale University Printing.
• Beeman, Richard (2009).
  Manifestly, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution. Random House.
• Bell, Tom Due west. (1993) “The Third Subpoena: Forgotten but Not Gone
  ^{[
  permanent dead link
  ]}
  “.
  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 Academy Press.
• Wood, Gordon Southward. (2009).
  Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815. Oxford University Press.

External links

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• National Constitution Center: Amendment 3
• CRS Annotated Constitution: Third Amendment