Northton

Hello fellow Bloggers!

This is third of eleven installments of:

"How to Be A Real American"

 

That's right, we are discussing Our Bill of Rights (YOUR RIGHTS!).

 

Amendment III

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.

 

This is not the most well known of amendments to the Bill of Rights so here's a little history on how it came to exist and it's importance to the American Revolution.   These are the events as I understand them.  I'm no historical scholar so feel free to correct me.

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By the 1750's, many colonists were demanding their freedom from Britain. In angry retaliation, the king and his Parliament passed a Quartering Act mandating that local colonial authorities provide barracks and supplies for the increasing number of British regulars being sent to America to keep the peace and stop the rebellion.   It is notable that Britain already had laws against soldiers encroaching on the rights and customs of regular citizens.  The act of allowing troops to be quartered in their homes must have seemed very unfair.   

Samuel Adams noted that military members followed a different set of laws than the general public and might, with their superior firepower and military training, impose their rules on citizens.   This is exactly what happened.  British soldiers accused of serious crimes, even murder, were allowed go free without punishment.

The colonists were outraged by unjust practices by their own government.  They began to openly rebel against British authority and, after the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773, the port of Boston was closed. Town meetings were banned.  There was a new Quartering Act, one even more intrusive and demanding than the one that preceded it.  It declared that the still-increasing number of British troops being sent to the colonies would not only be housed and fed in private buildings, but would be lodged in the private homes of citizens, whether they liked it or not.  George III wrote, ‘The die is now cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph.

 

In 1774, the First Continental Congress met and passed a resolution stating that the colonies were not bound to honor these Intolerable Acts.   It wasn't long until, in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed and America was on the way to becoming the nation we know today.  Colonial Americans had chafed at being forced to provide room and board for British soldiers, and they made sure the new Constitution protected them from such a practice. In fact, more states included this provision in proposed amendments to the Constitution than freedom of speech.

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The third amendment was quickly tested in the war of 1812, and quickly abused. When the American Congress declared war against England it said nothing about the quartering of troops. But soon enough, American troops were being quartered in American homes. Still, many if not most of those forced to accept forced billeting appear to have been compensated by the government in Washington when the war was over, and this compensation can be assumed to have been awarded in recognition of the fact that the law had been broken, the Third Amendment violated.

The Civil War brought the Third Amendment to light once again.  The Committee on War Claims estimated that half a million dollars in claims for rent and damage to real estate came from loyal states following the war, and two and a half million from rebel states as a result of troops being quartered on private property.

 

Is the Third Amendment to the Bill of Rights still important today?

Do you know of any recent violations of the Third Amendment? 

What Blog Ye?