The Third Amendment

The Text

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 Says

The government cannot house soldiers in your home in peacetime without your permission. In wartime it can only do so under a law passed for that purpose.

What It Protects Against

Military occupation of private homes. Quartering turned every household into a surveillance post and a supply depot for the army, and it made the soldier a permanent presence inside the domestic space the family controlled.

Sourced to a ratification-era document. See Contemporaneous Defense below.

Problem Addressed

The Quartering Act of 1765 and the expanded Quartering Act of 1774 required colonial assemblies to house and supply British troops. The Declaration of Independence lists quartering large bodies of armed troops among the grievances against the King.

Contemporaneous Defense

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, names the quartering of large bodies of armed troops among us as a specific grievance, and the practice was cited repeatedly in the state ratifying conventions as an abuse requiring explicit prohibition.