Amendment 3 — Historical Background On Third Amendment

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Third Amendment :

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.

The practice of quartering soldiers dates back to at least the Roman Republic, when territorial governors used it as a tool of oppression and source of income.. ") In seventeenth-century Britain, the Petition of Right of 1628 levied multiple complaints against King Charles I, including maintaining a standing army and the involuntary quartering of soldiers; ( “[O]f late great Companies of Souldiers and Marriners have been dispersed into divers Counties of the Realme, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourne against the Lawes and Customes of this Realme and to the great grievance and vexacion of the people.” ). ") it called on King Charles to end those practices.. ") When quartering continued, the English Parliament in 1679 passed the Anti-Quartering Act, which prohibited the involuntarily quartering and billeting of soldiers. (Eng.) ( “Noe officer military or civill nor any other person whatever shall from henceforth presume to place quarter or billet any souldier or souldiers.” ). ") A decade later, the Declaration of Rights (later codified as the Bill of Rights of 1689) cited King James II’s continued practices of maintaining a standing army and quartering as two justifications for his ouster in the “Glorious Revolution.” The Mutiny Act of 1689 further codified protections against quartering.

Concerns over the existence of standing armies and their quartering in private homes spread to the American colonies. The Mutiny Act’s prohibitions on quartering did not extend to the colonies, where involuntary quartering continued.. ") Although colonial legislatures attempted to regulate quartering to varying degrees,. ") the British Parliament did not extend the Mutiny Act’s protections to the colonies until 1765.. ") The Quartering Act forbade quartering in private homes but required the colonies to bear the costs of barracks and supplies for British soldiers or, in the alternative, to house British soldiers in “inns, livery stables, ale-houses, victualling-houses,” and other such establishments.

The Quartering Act of 1765 contributed to growing tensions between the colonists and British Forces. This friction ultimately led to outright conflict, one notable example being the Boston Massacre in 1770.. ") In response to these hostilities, the British Parliament passed the so-called “Intolerable” or “Coercive Acts,” including the Quartering Act of 1774.. Other Intolerable Acts included the Boston Port Act, 14 Geo. 3 c. 19 (1774) (prohibiting the use of the Port of Boston in commerce); the Administration of Justice Act, 14 Geo. 3 c. 39 (1774) (authorizing British officials to be tried in Great Britain instead of Massachusetts “to prevent a failure of justice” ), and the Massachusetts Government Act, 14 Geo. 3 c. 45 (1774) (placing the Massachusetts colony directly under the British government’s control). ") The 1774 Act expanded British officers’ ability to refuse unsuitable housing and seize “uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings” for purposes of quartering soldiers., with David Ammerman, In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774, at 10 (1974) ( “The act did not, as has often been asserted, provide for billeting soldiers in private homes.” ). ") As opposition to the Intolerable Acts led to revolution, the colonists’ experiences with quartering influenced the Declaration of Independence, which counted among its grievances against King George III the “Quartering [of] large bodies of armed troops among us.” . ")

As the newly independent states adopted organic laws, four states—Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire—included restrictions on quartering.; Md. Const. art. XXVIII (1776); Mass Const. art. XXVII (1780); N.H. Const. art. I, § XXVII (1784). In wartime, Delaware and Maryland limited quartering to “such manner only as the Legislature shall direct,” Del. Declaration of Rights § 21 (1776); Md. Const. art. XXVIII (1776), while Massachusetts and New Hampshire permitted wartime quartering when authorized “by the civil magistrate” under the legislature’s direction, Mass Const. art. XXVII (1780); N.H. Const. art. I, § XXVII (1784). ") These early state protections initially had no national analogue: the Articles of Confederation contained no restrictions on quartering. Likewise, although the Framers of the Constitution considered including such a restriction, ( “Mr. Pinkney submitted to the House . . . the following propositions . . . ‘No soldier shall be quartered in any House in time of peace without consent of the owner.’” ). ") it was not part of the final draft submitted to the states for ratification. Some Framers objected to the omission, arguing that the Constitution’s failure to prohibit quartering, while allowing standing armies, strengthened the central government’s power., reprinted in 5 The Founder’s Constitution 217 (Philip B. Kurland & Ralph Lerner eds., 1987) ( “[I]s there any provision in the constitution to prevent the quartering of soldiers on the inhabitants? . . . Though it is not to be presumed, that we are in any immediate danger from this quarter, yet it is fit and proper to establish, beyond dispute, those rights which are particularly valuable to individuals . . . .” ). ")

Reflecting this concern, five states’ ratifying conventions recommended amending the Constitution to include a prohibition on quartering in the Bill of Rights.; Fields & Hardy, supra note 7, at 81. ") The proposed amendments took two forms. Maryland and New Hampshire proposed amendments that would have prohibited involuntary quartering during peacetime but were silent as to quartering during wartime. In contrast, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina proposed amendments with the same peacetime restrictions that also subjected wartime quartering to limits imposed by law. This second version formed the basis for the amendment as introduced in the House of Representatives by James Madison (Joseph Gales ed., 1834) (statement of Rep. James Madison) ( “No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner; nor at any time, but in a manner warranted by law.” ). ") and ultimately adopted as the Third Amendment .

Footnotes

1

R. Morris Coates & Gary M. Pecquet, The Calculus of Conquests: The Decline and Fall of the Returns to Roman Expansion, 17 Indep. Rev. 517, 528 (2013).

2

Petition of Right 1628, 3 Car. 1, c. …