The Third Amendment
Housing soldiers
Bars the government from forcing homeowners to house soldiers, the least litigated provision in the Bill of Rights.
Ratified 1791 · 3 minute read
Published by Quasi-Legal Institute · Report an error
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 plain language
Quartering
To quarter soldiers means to require a household to house and feed them. In peacetime, the government cannot do this at all.
Why it exists
Before the Revolution, Parliament passed Quartering Acts that required colonies to supply housing and supplies for British troops. Colonists resented the cost and the intrusion. The Declaration of Independence lists, among its grievances against the King, “quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.”
The Third Amendment is part of a larger idea in the Bill of Rights: that a home is a place the government cannot enter on its own terms. The Fourth Amendment protects the same space against searches.
Almost no case law
The Supreme Court has never decided a case that turns on the Third Amendment. The best-known ruling is Engblom v. Carey (1982), a federal appeals court decision. During a strike by New York prison guards, the state housed National Guard troops in the guards’ own residences on prison grounds. The court held that National Guard members count as “soldiers,” that the guards were protected as tenants, and that the amendment applies to the states.
The amendment is more often cited as evidence that the Constitution protects the privacy of the home. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court listed it among the provisions that, taken together, point to a zone of privacy.