The Third Amendment

The Third Amendment forbids the government from quartering soldiers in private homes in peacetime without the owner's consent. It is the least-litigated provision of the Bill of Rights and one of the most settled.

The Third Amendment, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, reads in full: "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 grievance behind it was fresh in the minds of the founding generation. The Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774 had compelled American colonists to house and feed British soldiers, an imposition the Declaration of Independence listed among the king's offenses. The amendment is the constitutional answer.