The chaplain of the United States House of Representatives is chosen to "perform ceremonial, symbolic, and pastoral duties".

[11][12][13][14] Congressional members are limited to one guest chaplain recommendation per Congress,[15] Prayer before the opening of a legislative body traces its origins back to the colonial period.

Duché was later made the official chaplain of the Continental Congress and served in that capacity until five days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

[3] Duché eventually betrayed the cause of American independence and maligned the Continental army in a letter to George Washington.

Alexander Hamilton supposedly argued against the motion because the delegates did not need to call in "foreign aid," though the story is perhaps apocryphal.

(A recent letter by James Madison, future president and considered primary impetus to the U.S. Constitution, opposed hiring chaplains, on the grounds it violated the Bill of Rights' requirement of disestablishment of religion, and also discriminated against religious groups such as Quakers and Catholics, who "could scarcely be elected to the office".

[22] The clerk of the House relates "The First Congress under the Constitution began on the 4th of March, 1789; but there was not a quorum for business till the 1st of April.

...The law of 1789 was passed in compliance with their [the joint committee's] plan, giving chaplains a salary...It was reenacted in 1816, and continues to the present time.

It was objected that neither the Constitution nor the law recognized such an officer, and not until the payment of his salary depended upon his taking the ironclad oath, adopted in 1862 did his official character become established.

[4] Both the House and Senate chaplains are elected as individuals, "not as representatives of any religious body or denominational entity".

[11] Opponents have argued that it violates the separation of church-and-state and proponents have argued, among other factors, that the fact that the same early legislators who wrote the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights, from which the position of "non-establishment" and church and state separation is derived, were the same ones who approved and appointed the chaplains.

[11] President James Madison was an example of one U.S. leader who ultimately came to think that the positions of Senate and House chaplains could not be constitutionally supported, although whether he always held this view (and to what extent he believed it at various times during his life) is a subject of debate.

[11] However it is clear from his "Detached Memoranda" writings during his retirement that he had come to believe the positions could not be justified: Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

According to the clerk of the House "Their prayers, it seems, too often evinced something of the partisan spirit [over slavery and State's rights] that characterized the pending controversy, and in the following Congress (1857) certain Members who claimed that the employment of chaplains conflicted with the spirit of the Constitution and tended to promote a union of church and state, made a determined effort to discontinue their use.

[3] This led to "an acrimonious debate [in] the House" which resulted in an overwhelming majority resolving "That the daily sessions of this body be opened with prayer".

The Court cited the practice going back to the Continental Congress in 1774 and noted that the custom "is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country" from colonial times and the founding of the republic.

Further, the Court held that the use of prayer "has become part of the fabric of our society," coexisting with "the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom."

[4]In 2000, a C-SPAN "public affairs on the web" response to the question of constitutional challenges noted that: In 1983, the Supreme Court upheld the practice of having an official chaplain as deeply ingrained in the history and tradition of this country.

[4][8] Reverend William H. Milburn while serving as chaplain in the 52nd Congress "got into the habit of praying against gambling in stocks and bonds".

[3] In September 2000, guest chaplain Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala opened a session with a Hindu prayer sparking protests from some conservative Christian media figures.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Margaret Grun Kibben, a Presbyterian minister, currently serves as the 62nd chaplain of the House of Representatives.