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. Alva O. The Third Amendment seems to have no direct constitutional relevance at present; indeed, not only is it the least litigated amendment in the Bill of Rights, but the Supreme Court has never decided a case on the basis of it.
The federal government today is not likely to ask people to house soldiers in their homes, even in time of war. Nevertheless, the amendment has some modern implications. When the amendment was written in the eighteenth century, Americans and Englishmen in general believed that the issue of quartering troops in private homes was of great and palpable significance.
Yet the English attitude was contradictory. At the same time as the English protested the quartering of troops in private homes, they were reluctant to house the soldiers in barracks separated from the civilian population.
Thus, the English concluded that if they had to have an army, it must be scattered among the populace and housed preferably in inns, alehouses, stables, and private homes.
But as Parliament made clear in the Glorious Revolution of , the government could not billet troops in private homes without the consent of the owners. So the English fear of standing armies was inextricably connected to their fear of having soldiers quartered in their homes without their consent. In , the British Parliament passed a Quartering Act requiring the colonies to feed and house these soldiers.
This act was unpopular in the colonies, especially after the Boston Massacre in which British troops fired on a crowd and killed five people. This quartering was among the grievances Thomas Jefferson listed in the Declaration of Independence.
After the American Revolution , the constitutional framers debated whether the United States should even have a standing army. But, over time, that would change. Supreme Court has only mentioned it a couple of times. In the majority opinion, Justice Robert H. In the case of Griswold v. Connecticut , the court argued that the First, Third, Fourth and Ninth Amendments suggested a right to privacy, and that this gave married couples the right to use contraception.
The U. While Engblom is a close fit to the purpose of the amendment, other applications are less clear. United States v. Valenzuela, 95 F. Calif , is a case where a soldier tried to use the Third Amendment to protest the end of rent control in Los Angeles. Another stretched use of the Amendment occurred in Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense, F. In this case, army reservists tried to use the Third Amendment as justification for refusing to march in a parade.
They lost their argument. No case has ever been accepted to the U. Supreme Court on a Third Amendment issue. The question remains. Do we really need the Third Amendment in our modern age? We have a standing Army, Navy and Air Force. All have healthy budgets for housing troops. Yet, legal scholars contend the Third Amendment does have relevance in the present. It exemplifies the right to personal privacy, to the sanctity of the American home.
It is the only place in the Constitution discussing the relationship between civilians and the military. It stands for the idea that in this country people are protected from the government intruding into our homes and our private spaces. Legal Learn Start the Tour. Welcome to LawforSenior. Translate Use this drop-down to translate the website into a language of your choice! Prev Step Next Step. Font Size Increase or decrease the font size of the page with this easy to use tool!
Accessibility This tool reads the text on the page aloud, alters the font for those with dyslexia, and uses high contrast for those with color blindness.
0コメント