Really? Every civilian you met knew the technical difference? You’ve never seen “soldiers” or “troops” used in the media as a generic reference for military personnel?
Here’s Senator Rand Paul in an Op-Ed in Newsweek calling on the U.S. to “End the Afghanistan War and Bring Our Soldiers Home”:
I think he was pretty clearly calling for all U.S. military personnel to be withdrawn, including Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen, not just “Soldiers”.
Do you think the term “Soldier” as it used in the Third Amendment actually only applies to members the U.S. Army, and doesn’t forbid Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen from being quartered in any house without permission of the owner?
If the reference is specifically to members of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, I agree it’s pretty rare for them to be referred to as “soldiers”. But using “soldier” as a generic term to encompass all U.S. military personnel, or to refer to military personnel in general as “soldiers”, is, in my experience, fairly common.
And, again, I think it’s pretty clear that the use of the term “Soldier” in the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution encompasses all U.S. military personnel, including Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen. Do you disagree?
I’ll admit I’m a bit dumbfounded. You think the U.S. government can seize private homes for use as naval barracks without the consent of their owners in a manner not prescribed by law?
Do you also think the Air Force is unconstitutional? If it is, does the Third Amendment apply to Airmen?
I asked you specifically about the Third Amendment, because this whole exchange started upthread when I used the Third Amendment as an example of the broader meaning of “Soldier”. I was arguing to @Max_S that just as the term “Soldier” has a broader meaning than literally just members of the U.S. Army, and in common usage doesn’t actually exclude members of all other services, so the terms “armies” and “Navy” as used in the Constitution has a broader meaning than literally just the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy, and doesn’t inherently exclude all other services.
Then I got push-back from you and @spifflog about the common usage of the term “Soldier”.
If you read the Third Amendment as specifically only applying to members of the U.S. Army, then the corollary to that reading is that the U.S. government is free to barrack Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen in private homes without the owner’s permission, and not as prescribed by law.
In the context of the actual topic of this thread, that lead me to ask if you also agree with the OP that the Air Force is unconstitutional on a similar basis of a hyper-literal and exclusionary reading of terms in the Constitution.
But I’m still rather flabbergasted by your reply. Why are Airmen “basically soldiers”, but Sailors aren’t? Are Marines? Coast Guardsmen?
At the time the Amendments were written, they were specifically addressing an issue with peacetime barracking of soldiers (not sailors) in private homes and inns. That is all. There was no equivalent problem apparently with sailors.
Just an odd bit of history.
As to Airmen being soldiers, the Air Force came out of the army. They have no association with the Navy at all.
I understand the historical background of the Third Amendment. But you seem to be dancing around the point I was making. I’ll ask you again, directly: Do you think the U.S. government has the power to barrack Sailors in private houses without the owner’s consent and in a manner not prescribed by law? What about Marines?
And while the U.S. Air Force as an organization historically evolved from the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Army Air Forces, Airmen are not Soldiers, any more than Sailors are, in strictly technical terms.
I think the argument that Airmen are really Soldiers but Sailors aren’t subject to Third Amendment restrictions is just as absurd as the OP’s opinion that the United States Air Force is unconstitutional.
This conversation is fairly ridiculous. Have fun with it.
Of course the Air Force isn’t unconstitutional.
The 3rd Amendment is not the reason we cannot house sailors in private homes in peacetime. But we don’t do so and probably have other laws that prevent such.
All it says is
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.
And they weren’t talking about US Navy sailors at the time as it wasn’t an issue at the time but quartering Soldiers was a major issue under the Brits.
I think I tend to agree with you. But one interesting thing is that many of the (roughly) contemporaneous sources about quartering drew a distinction between “soldiers” and “mariners” (and both were being quartered).
Parliament’s 1628 “Petition of Right” complained that “great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn”. Similarly, New York passed a 1683 law banning the quartering of “any Marriners or Souldiers” (except in time of war).
By independence, the references from the American Colonies are only to “soldiers” or “armed troops”. I’m not aware of any discussion about why “mariners” were suddenly no longer included (and I don’t know whether naval personnel properly fall under soldiers or mariners, which could include civilians). But I found it curious.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Georgia (interpreting a statute about “disabled” “soldiers”) concluded that it included “sailors” observing – “while it cannot be said, upon the application of the definition given by the lexicographers, that the term ‘soldiers’ embraces ‘sailors,’ nevertheless, in the view of the evident purpose of this act, we think that by the term ‘soldiers’ the Legislature intended to include all who served as members of the forces engaged in the war, and that it includes enlisted men in the Navy . . . as well as soldiers in the narrower sense of the term.”
I agree with this. In common parlance, one would not call a sailor a soldier, but that is only because there is a commonly used word (sailor) that more particularly and accurately describes the function of that individual. However, if you really got down to brass tacks, I would argue that a sailor is also a type of soldier in that they are a person who is part of the war-making apparatus of the country, and are subject to the Third Amendment’s prohibitions.
In addition, I don’t think it would pass constitutional muster if a law was passed that said I had to quarter the Director of the CDC at my house either. That would flow from the Fourth Amendment.
I think you bring up a good example as to why textualism or original intent does not have to be hyper-literalism.
Well, 212 posts in, I guess I’m glad that’s settled by your fiat declaration. But it seems to me you’re applying exactly the same sort of hyper-literalism as the OP.
I’m still uncertain why you are so certain the Third Amendment only applies to members of the U.S. Army and not the U.S. Navy. I’m pretty sure it applies to all the U.S. armed services, because it would be ludicrous if it weren’t the case. Under your reading, it would seem to be perfectly constitutional for the Congress to authorize a massive Shore Patrol force under the U.S. Navy and occupy cities with “Sailors” quartered in private homes, just as long as they were careful not to call them “Soldiers”.
And I don’t think we actually do “have other laws that prevent such” precisely because the 3rd Amendment has always been understood to apply to all of the armed forces, not just specifically the U.S. Army. But I could be wrong. I’d certainly be interested in legislation or case law that indicates otherwise.
(And I’m pretty sure this is a silly nitpick and you meant the 3rd Amendment is not the reason we cannot house sailors in private homes in peacetime without the owner’s consent. But we do actually house Sailors in private homes in peacetime, we just do it with the owner’s consent, and as prescribed by law, in accordance with the 3rd Amendment.)
Again, I really, truly understand the historical context. But the argument that therefore U.S. Navy personnel aren’t covered by the 3rd Amendment seems bizarre to me.
And, again, what about those poor, forgotten U.S. Marines? Are they “Soldiers” under the 3rd Amendment?
I think your examples actually tend to reinforce my position. I don’t think there is a distinction being drawn between “soldiers” on the one hand and “mariners” on the other - it’s just a stylistic choice to use both terms. Later documents just use “soldiers” more generically, to cover all military personnel.
The alternate reading would be that for some reason between 1628 and 1776 the colonists, and subsequently the Framers, decided it was actually ok to force private home owners to quarter mariners without their consent, and had withdrawn that part of their previous complaints.
I’m not sure that’s true, on further look. Digging around a little, it seems like the phrase “soldiers and mariners” was fairly common in other contexts. For example, English law (and early American law) provided special rules for “soldiers and mariners” when it came to making a will, and associated issues. There was a English law to specifically provide for sick and maimed “soldiers and mariners”. The point of a lot of the rules (like the testamentary rules) is that these people were often young, often died, and were often overseas. But they’re not the same category.
For example, there is a lot of law addressing what is a “mariner at sea” or a “solider in actual military service” (since those are the concepts used in the estate laws). A mariner includes naval personnel or merchant marine personnel (and, in one case, a female typist employed by an ocean liner). A solider includes army personnel, militiamen, female army nurses, and, perhaps, civilian contractors.
The definition of “at sea” is narrower than “in actual service,” but a lot of those decisions would have been avoided if we concluded that the sailor was actually a soldier.
Keep in mind too that human beings don’t always speak with precision. For example, kids are often told to stay away from “drugs and alcohol” even though alcohol is a drug as well. Caffeine is also a drug, but that particular drug is not included in the admonition, nor is any drug prescribed by a doctor.
So, it really doesn’t reach a proper legal result to take strict dictionary definitions of terms and apply it when the public at the time would have understood its common meaning.
Between 1628 and 1789, common usage of the term “soldier” had expanded to encompass soldiers proper as well as “mariners”, “sailors”, “marines”, and all other military personnel, at least in some contexts (if, indeed, that wasn’t already true in 1628).
Between 1628 and 1789, the policy of quartering mariners in private homes without the owner’s consent had largely subsided, but quartering Soldiers had continued, so that it was specifically quartering of Soldiers that was salient to the drafters of the Bill of Rights, and that’s what they wanted to specifically address.
Between 1628 and 1789, a general consensus had been reached in what would become the United States that quartering mariners in private homes without the owner’s consent was perfectly fine and shouldn’t be forbidden, but quartering Soldiers specifically was an infringement of the rights of citizens and should be forbidden.
I find 3. ludicrous. Is there any reason to think it’s true?
I think 1. is entirely plausible, and fits my position, but I don’t know for sure that it’s true.
I think 2. is also plausible, but even in that case, I think the idea that the use of the term “Soldiers” is meant to specifically exclude Sailors and is meant to limit the application of the 3rd Amendment only to specifically members of the U.S. Army and not any other branch of service is also fairly ludicrous, because see 3.
As a practical matter when would a government want to quarter sailors in your home? They are either at sea or near the sea, so it would only affect beach front homes and even then sailors would sleep on the ship. Sometimes things aren’t mentioned because they aren’t a problem.
