Third Amendment to the United States Constitution
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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, and then only according to law. The Founding Fathers' intention in writing this amendment was to prevent the recurrence of soldiers being quartered in private property as was done in Colonial America by the British military under the Quartering Act before the American Revolution (1775–1776).
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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
The original text of the Constitution generated some opposition on the ground that it did not include adequate guarantees of civil liberties. In response, the Third Amendment, along with several amendments including the ten that now form the Bill of Rights, was proposed by Congress on September 25, 1789. The process of adoption by ratification by three-fourths of the states was completed on December 15, 1791.
Several revisions were proposed prior to 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.[1]
Case law
The Third Amendment is among the least cited sections of the U.S. Constitution.[1] A product of its times, its relevance has greatly declined since the American Revolution. In particular, military operations occurring on U.S. territory have been increasingly infrequent, especially after the Civil War in the 19th century. Those popular references to the amendment which exist are often in jest, presumably due to the lack of soldiers quartered in homes.[1][2]
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.[1]
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 Framer's 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.[1]
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, 97 F. Supp. 346 (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.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Tom W. Bell, The Third Amendment: Forgotten but Not Gone, 2 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. 117 (1993)
- ↑ "Third Amendment Rights Group Celebrates Another Successful Year". theonion.com. http://www.theonion.com/articles/third-amendment-rights-group-celebrates-another-su,2296/.
External links
- 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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