The Third Amendment: No Soldiers in Your Home

What it plainly means

The government may not house soldiers in your home in peacetime unless you agree. In wartime it may do so only under rules passed by law, not on a commander's say-so.

History and the Founders' intent

Parliament's Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774 required the colonies to house and supply British troops. The Declaration of Independence charged the King with keeping "among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures" and "Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us." The Third Amendment turns that grievance into a permanent rule: the home is the citizen's castle, and military power stays subordinate to civil law.

Key cases

The Supreme Court has never decided a case squarely on the Third Amendment, which shows how well it has been obeyed. The leading lower-court case is Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), which held that striking prison guards housed in state-provided residences could raise a Third Amendment claim when National Guard troops were lodged in their rooms. The Supreme Court has cited the Amendment as part of the Constitution's protection of the home, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).

What it means for you today

No soldier can be billeted in your home without your consent. The principle behind it, civilian control of the military and the sanctity of the home, runs through both state constitutions: Tennessee's Article I, Section 24 keeps the military "in strict subordination to the civil authority" (Sections 25 and 27 limit martial law and quartering), and Colorado's Article II, Section 22 says "the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil power."