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Benjamin Harrison
Inaugural Address
Monday, March 4, 1889

Nominated on the 8th ballot of the Republican convention, the Civil War veteran, jurist, and Senator from Indiana was the only grandson of a President to be elected to the office, as well as the only incumbent to lose in the following election to the person he had defeated. In a rainstorm, the oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Melville Fuller on the East Portico of the Capitol. President Cleveland held an umbrella over his head as he took the oath. John Philip Sousa's Marine Corps band played for a large crowd at the inaugural ball in the Pension Building.