Video: ‘James Polk’

(Tuesday, March 4, 1845) — Former House Speaker James K. Polk of Tennessee was inaugurated today as the 11th President of the United States at the East Portico of the United States Capitol with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney administering oath of office.

Polk replaced John Tyler who had failed in a bid to be elected to a second term.

Former U.S. Senator George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania was inaugurated as the 11th Vice President of the United States (the office had been vacant since Tyler became president upon the death of President William Harrison on Apr. 4, 1841).

This was the first inaugural ceremony to be reported by telegraph and to be shown in a newspaper illustration (in The Illustrated London News).

Polk and Dallas, who ran on the Democratic ticket, had defeated Whigs Henry Clay-Theodore Frelinghuysen in the November-December 1844 general election.