[101] He chose not to wear an overcoat or a hat, rode on horseback to the grand ceremony, and then delivered the longest inaugural address in American history[101] at 8,445 words. It took him nearly two hours to read, although his friend and fellow Whig Daniel Webster had edited it for length.[102] Freehling opines that speeches like this were actually common at the time, and that its irony was rich, as Harrison, "a lifelong office seeker, elected by deeply partisan politics, criticized both".[103]
The inaugural address was a detailed statement of the Whig agenda, a repudiation of Jackson's and Van Buren's policies, and the first and only formal articulation by Harrison of his approach to the presidency.