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.
What it means to me...
The third amendment basically prevents the government from quartering soldiers in civilian homes during time of peace, unless given consent from the individual. It is very important because it offered protection as well as privacy rights to soldiers from government intrusion. This is also known as inferred privacy.
The following is an excerpt from an article about quartering soldiers...
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The Third Amendment and the Issue of the Maintenance of Standing Armies: A Legal History
by WILLIAM S. FIELDS* and DAVID T. HARDY**
1. Introduction
The third amendment of the United States Constitution provides that "[n]o 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."[1] Among the legal protections set forth in the American Bill of Rights,[2] few have been relegated to more obscurity.[Page 394] For almost two hundred years, now, it has gone virtually unnoticed. No Supreme Court case has ever directly interpreted the amendment, although several opinions, most notably the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, mention it in passing as one aspect of the right to privacy.[3] Complaints arising under the amendment have been urged in a handful of lower court cases, but most of them have been summarily dismissed as farfetched assertions.[4] In only one instance, the 1982 case of Engblom v. Carey, has a lower court ever been asked to directly apply the amendment in a meaningful context requiring an interpretation of its quartering provisions.[5]
Although the third amendment is today widely taken for granted, to many in the revolutionary generation, its protections were a matter of great importance. The grievance, which the amendment sought to [Page 395] address, the abuses of persons and property resulting from the involuntary quartering of soldiers was one of the major problems associated with the presence of British soldiers in the colonies prior to and during the Revolutionary War. The presence of those soldiers as a group was itself the basis of the larger political grievance and root cause of the Revolution¾the maintenance of "standing armies" in peacetime without the consent of the colonial legislatures. Unlike the other problems attributed to the presence of British soldiers, however, the quartering problem was by its history and nature so intimately connected with the larger political issue of the "standing army," that in the end, the successful resolution of that larger issue for practical purposes rendered superfluous the protections which came to be embodied within the third amendment.
The grievances relating to the involuntary quartering of soldiers and the maintenance of standing armies were the products of a common experience. Their origins and development paralleled; and at crucial junctures in both English and American history they became so closely linked so as to be almost indistinguishable. Yet, throughout their history each of the grievances maintained a separate legal identity; each was addressed in different ways within the United States Constitution; and the solution to the problems of each to a great extent reflected different ideological, historical, and practical considerations.
The earliest efforts to curb the abuses relating to the involuntary quartering of soldiers appeared in the charters of towns and boroughs. Examples of those early enactments included Henry I's London Charter of 1130, which contained the passage "[l]et no one be billeted within the walls of the city, either of my household, or by force of anyone else,"[23] and Henry II's London Charter of 1155, which provided "that within the walls no one shall be forcibly billeted, or by the assignment of the marshall."[24] Some of those documents appeared before the Magna Carta, which contained no specific reference to quartering, but did reaffirm the "ancient liberties and free customs" of London and the other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports; seemingly incorporating their provisions by reference.[25] Those charters were the major legal antecedents of the third amendment. [Page 400]2. Early Attempts to Regulate Quartering
Under the provisions in the early charters, the authority to admit soldiers into the city, and to determine where and in what number they would be lodged, was typically vested in town marshals or constables who were prohibited by their terms from quartering soldiers in a dwelling without the consent of the owner. Soldiers lodged by consent in civilian homes were supposed to pay for anything they took; payment usually being in the form of chits, tallies, or billets that could be redeemed from the government or used in the payment of taxes. The receipts given by the soldiers, however, often proved worthless and the legal prohibitions against involuntary quartering were continually violated.[26] Further, the legal restraints found in the charters were only applicable within their respective locales; ran only to the owners of property; and did not extend protection to the countryside.[27] In an era of limited expectations in privacy, they were more in the nature of a personal right in property, designed to protect and compensate the growing and increasingly influential commercial class of the cities, towns and ports.
During the middle Ages, the manner of organizing, feeding, lodging, and disciplining soldiers suffered from a lack of centralized control; barracks for example were almost nonexistent. Until those problems were solved in a way satisfactory to the general population, legal restraints on involuntary quartering alone, would not prove adequate to remedy the problem.
3. The Linkage of the Quartering Grievance with the Political Issue of the Maintenance of Standing Armies
Under the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, Charles I had become involved in wasteful wars on the continent against France and Spain. As in the past, professional soldiers were utilized in these conflicts and, as was all too common in the English experience, there were [Page 403] allegations of mistreatment of citizens by the soldiers as they traveled to their passages across the channel.[39] Parliament, which was deeply distrustful of Buckingham and his policies, balked at subsidizing Charles' military ventures. With the king and parliament deadlocked over the issues of taxation and appropriations, large numbers of soldiers found themselves without barracks or money to pay for billeting in inns; and many were left with no choice but to seek quarters in private homes.[40] The popular dissatisfaction which resulted under those circumstances found expression in the Petition of Right presented to the king by the Lords and Commons of Parliament in 1628. Prominent in the Petition was the grievance,whereas of late, great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants, against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of this realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people.Although the problem of quartering was essentially an undesirable byproduct of the more fundamental political issue of the king's maintenance of a standing army without parliament's consent, the Petition defined the grievance with a legal identity of its own, and in doing so, its guarantees became an enduring part of the English constitution.
. . . .. . . and that your majesty would be pleased to remove said soldiers and manners; and that your people may not be so burdened in time to come.[41]
Charles' disputes with parliament continued as he attempted to raise revenues without parliamentary authority, through such means as the exacting of customs duties known as tonnage and poundage, the reviving of feudal rights, the granting of "patents," and the extension to inland counties of the infamous tax known as "ship money."[42] Eventually the situation evolved into civil war in 1642, with the issue of control of the militia serving as the catalyst.[43] In the ensuing conflict both sides relied upon the use of standing armies; both of which on occasion demanded free quarters and abused the civilian population. Sir Thomas Fairfax, a parliamentary leader, noted of his opponents that:
[they] are extremely outragious in plundering . . . puting no deferanc at all betweene friends and supposed enemis . . . taken al that hath been usefull [Page 404] for them and ript up featherbeds and throwne the feathers in the wind to be blowen away for sport and scaned all the barrels of beere and wine and spilt it in their sillers. They have kid of one mans 1,000 cheese and throwne away much of it they could not ate, many other outrages they commit to large express this way . . .[44]The end result of the war was a military dictatorship which furthered the popular aversion to the army.[45] The dictatorship ended in turn with the 1660 restoration of Charles II who restored only a limited royalist militia backed by a standing army.[46] However, trouble between soldiers and the civilian population again erupted during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, and the issue of quartering continued to be a problem even though the era saw such improvements as the abolition of the system of military purveyance;[47] the extensive use of tents as a means of sheltering troops; the construction of a few hospitals and barracks; and increased sophistication in military training and organization.
<http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/FieldsAndHardy2.html>
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This article talks about the history of the involuntary quartering of soldiers and how it was a major problem associated with the presence of British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. The article also states that no Supreme Court case has ever directly interpreted this amendment and the right to privacy, and that there are many grievances against involuntary quartering and the maintenance of standing armies.
The following is the link to a court case that involved the third amendment...
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=965338n
(double-click the entire link and right click, select "Go to http://www.cbsnews..."
The Supreme Court has never directly addressed the meaning of the third amendment. However, in the case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court cited the third amendment as one part of the Bill of Rights that evidences "zones of privacy" and a constitutional right to privacy. In this case, the court held that Connecticut could not outlaw the use of birth control by married couples. The court explained that the right to privacy was inherent in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments, and that states must honor it.
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