Sunday, April 15, 2012

the Third Amendment: No Quarter for Joe unless he asks nicely

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 Third Amendment 

This is one of the least used, and hardly know amendments.  Lets face it when's the last time you heard of US troops knocking on a US citizen's door and saying they were taking the house?  Never.  It really hasn't happened since the Revolution.  There is all of one relevant case to this Amendment and it wasn't even seen in the Supreme Court.  Indeed while we can station troops in your house in a time of war, which hasn't really happened in the Continental United States since the War of 1812 (the Civil war doesn't technically count because most of it happened in what was at the time technically a foreign country). 

For rather obvious reasons Soldiers typically like Camps away from the civilian population when fighting a Force v. Force war.  Now this is kind of a funny thing because Iraq and Afghanistan you've had to buy up property to create little bases, and sometimes you go into a house and stay there for a couple of days, after giving wads of cash and telling them to scram.  As long as there is Law surrounding how you do this (and keep in mind everyone has agreed Afghanistan and Iraq are Wars) you're in the clear. 

My take, this won't be an issue unless Marshal Law has to be declared and even then, the Army is good at building Tent Cities.  Still as this was one of the grievances cited in the Declaration of Independence, it would be rather bone headed not to include this in the Bill of Rights. 

1 comment:

Argent said...

Such a strange amendment. So easy to overpower or legally maneuver around. And I would have thought the forces that encouraged this would have wanted seizure of property restricted as well.