The document summarizes the history and key aspects of the 3rd Amendment. It prohibits the quartering of soldiers in private homes during peacetime without consent and requires legal procedures if done during wartime. The amendment was a response to British actions during the colonial period like the Quartering Acts that forced colonists to house soldiers. While never the subject of a Supreme Court ruling, one case in 1982 found it does apply to states by prohibiting the National Guard from occupying the homes of striking prison guards. The 3rd Amendment is seen as protecting privacy in one's home from government intrusion.

1. 3rd
Amendment

2. 3rd
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.”

3. 1. Prohibits government during peacetime from forcing
private citizens to quarter soldiers without the property
owner’s permission
2. If government must quarter soldiers during a time of
war, it must do so according to legal procedures

4. History
Prohibition of quartering troops in private homes was
included in English Bill of Rights (1689)
3rd
Amendment does not distinguish between private and
public
During French & Indian War (1754-1763) British troops
were quartered in both public & private houses in
American colonies

5. History
British troops were ordered to stay in American colonies
after French & Indian War
Quartering Act (1765) required colonial assemblies to
pay the cost of feeding and housing British troops in the
colonies
NY & MA protested quartering of soldiers
Boston Massacre (1770)

7. History
Declaration stated the King “has kept among us, in time
of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our
legislatures”
Oddly, colonial troops were quartered among private
citizens during the Revolutionary War

8. History
Some protested that the Constitution of 1787 provided
for a peacetime or standing army
Patrick Henry of VA noted that there was no protection
Push to include protection from quartering of troops in
the Bill of Rights

9. Third Amendment & the
Courts
Never the subject of a Supreme Court decision
Never incorporated to apply to states
Interpreted in Engblom v. Carey (1982) by U.S. Court of
Appeals
Referred to in Supreme Court cases in regards to right to
privacy

10. Engblom v. Carey (1982)
Strike by prison guards in NY
Some guards lived in dorm-type housing on grounds of the
prison
Governor ordered the states National Guard to provide
security at prison
Striking guards were locked out of living quarters, National
Guard housed there instead
Court deemed that members of National Guard were soldiers,
and that the 3rd
Amendment did apply to the states

11. The Third Amendment
& Privacy
Justice Joseph Story in 1833—The Third Amendment’s
“plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that
great right of the common law, that a man’s house shall
be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military
intrusion.”

12. The Third Amendment
& Privacy
A reminder that there are limits to government’s power
to intrude upon its citizens, that there are places it may
not go.