The Least Controversial Amendment by Gary Hainsworth

Aside from the Lame Duck Amendment (1933), the Third Amendment is probably the least controversial of the prevailing 27 amendments. Although if Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his call for a convention of states succeeds there could be nine new amendments making 36 amendments. Interestingly enough, the last amendment to be ratified, I.e. the 27th amendment, was originally the second of two rejected amendments (out of twelve approved by the Senate) which failed to make into the final version of the Bill of Rights (1789)1, which took effect on December 15, 1791 after Virginia became the last state to ratify the proposed amendments known collectively as the Bill of Rights. Had this amendment been ratified when the others were ratified, the future 27th Amendment would have been the Second Amendment instead of the right to bear arms. In addition, the Third Amendment would have been the Fifth Amendment. However, things did not go according to plan. The first two proposed amendments in the omnibus of twelve proposed by James Madison were rejected but the last ten amendments were accepted. In other words, the last ten amendments of the Bill of Rights became the first ten amendments of the U.S Constitution.2 

The Third Amendment to the Constitution, I.e. “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.”, rarely gets invoked in the Supreme Court. Unlike, the more familiar First or Fourteenth Amendments, which seem to be continually interpreted and reinterpreted by past, present and future courts, the Third Amendment rarely gets invoked but under extraordinary circumstances. To put things into perspective, the first and last time (since the 1700s) that the Third Amendment was invoked by a federal court was in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit court case Engblom v. Carey (1982). The issue was in regards to the housing of National Guard members employed during a strike by New York State correction officers . In other words, the 3 Third Amendment is generally not considered relevant. It could be argued that it is obsolete too. The Third Amendment appears to be a peculiar relic for and from a bygone era, the proverbial answer to a question no longer being asked: the quartering of British soldiers. The Third Amendment itself could be said to be a direct response to the Quartering Act of 1765 which permitted the British that soldiers from Great Britain be housed in American barracks and public houses (and not at the soldiers expense)4. Other than the economic hardships and implicitinvasion of privacies cause by the act, the Quartering Act of 1765 was considered a violation of the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which were held in high esteem.5

Works Cited

1= Buescher, John. 2016. "James Madison's Failed Amendments | Teachinghistory.Org".
2=(Buescher 2016)
3="Understanding the 3rd Amendment." http://constitution.laws.com/. Laws -- American History -- Constitution. Accessed February 09, 2016. http://tinyurl.com/zjygfa6 

4="The Quartering Act | History of American Revolution." The Quartering Act | History of American Revolution. Accessed February 09, 2016. http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/thequarteringact
5=Ibid.,