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The holidays are around the corner and nothing feels better than layers that are cozy, polished and built to last. That's why I love Quince. Their sweaters, outerwear and everyday essentials feel luxurious. They look timeless and they make holiday dressing and gifting so effortless. Quint has it all. $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters. You'll actually wear denim that stays classic, silk tops and skirts that instantly elevate any outfit and down outerwear with Ready for the Season and their Italian wool coats designer level, quality and fit without the designer price. By working directly with ethical top tier factories, Quince skips the middlemen and offers prices about 50% less than similar brands I've been reaching for their cashmere layers and that wool coat non stop perfect for holiday gatherings or everyday errands. Quince really has something for everyone on your list whether gifting or treating yourself. So step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good feel from quince. Go to quince.com preamble for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com preamble to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com preamble the holidays are here, which means parties, photos and probably a little chaos. But getting ready doesn't have to be complicated thanks to Merit Beauty. I've been using Merit for a while now and it's become my go to for that polished, effortless look, especially during the busy season. Their flush balm gives the perfect soft glow in seconds and their great skin serum keeps my skin hydrated and radiant no matter how little sleep I get. What I love most is how simple it all is. Just a few clean, vegan, cruelty free products that actually work. Plus the packaging is so chic it basically wraps itself so it is perfect for gifting. And right now is the best time to shop because Merit only has one sale a year and it's happening now. Whether you're treating yourself or checking someone off your list, this is your moment to stock up on those everyday staples you'll use down to the last drop. Merit's annual sale is on now until December 1st. Get 20% off site wide plus a gift with purchase with every order while supplies last at meritbeauty.com that's M-E-R-I-T beauty.com meritbeauty.com. Matthew Lyon didn't glide into Congress the way some men did. Carried by polish and pedigree he arrived like a force, an Irish immigrant with a face carved by work and weather, eyebrows angled in permanent skepticism, and the unmistakable air of a man who had clawed his way into rooms never meant for him. Nothing about Lyon was built for deference. At age 15, he boarded a ship bound for the American colonies, willing to subject himself to a long, unpleasant voyage in a ship's hold, tossed on tempestuous seas and blanketed by the rankness of his fellow beleaguered passengers. Sickness was rampant, food was scarce, and those who survived the voyage arrived thin and exhausted. More on that story in a moment. But first, welcome to the Preamble Podcast. If you're new each week you'll hear some of the most interesting stories from our weekly magazine, also called the Preamble. This week we're focused on political parties and have some really interesting stories for you that you can find on the preamble.com in today's episode, I'm speaking with prominent Democratic Congressman James Clyburn. He's held several leadership positions in the party, including House majority whip and assistant Democratic leader. When he won election in 1992, he was the first black congressman to be elected in South Carolina in nearly 100 years. He has a new book out, the First Eight, about the eight black congressmen from his home state that came before him, including a man who had been born enslaved and a black man whose own family enslaved people. As it turns out, James Clyburn knew somebody that I am very fond of. If you've read my book, you'll recognize this name, Septima Clark. I really think you're going to enjoy this conversation. I'm Sharon McMahon, and this is the Preamble Podcast. And now back to our story. Lyon became an indentured servant in a print shop run by Ebenezer Watson. Print shops were hot and loud, the smell and the smudges of ink embedded in every surface. But they were also places where ideas circulated as quickly as rumors. For a boy who had left Ireland during a period of steep economic pressure with few prospects, working for Watson offered Lyon something people of his class rarely had proximity to power. Matthew Lyon learned politics and propaganda at the same wooden cases where he learned to set type. When the Revolution came, he stepped toward it, serving with the Green Mountain Boys under Colonel Seth Warner, Lyon hauled supplies, the New England ice biting his fingers and cheeks, and worked among men like him. All grit, no laudable family tree. When the war ended, Lyon made his way north to Vermont, surrounded by more people like him, whose lives were hewn by the labor of their own backs. He opened a sawmill and then a print shop, garnering enough acclaim to be elected to represent Vermont in the House of Representatives. Matthew Lyon knew that he was never going to be invited to a seat at the table with the genteel Tidewater planters. He was no Jefferson, no Madison. If he wanted space, he would have to take it. In January 1798, Representative Samuel Dana of Connecticut delivered a speech defending the Adams administration's kush to expand the army. The 106 men of the House of Representatives were seated in a semicircle around Dana and his multiple chins, and Lyon did not approve of Dana's Federalist ways. Perhaps in an attempt to mock Dana into silence, Lyon began to laugh, loud enough to halt Dana mid sentence and rudely enough to catch the attention of another Connecticut man, Roger Griswold. Griswold rose from his seat, fury rising in his veins, and delivered an insult he knew would sting a self assured man like Lyon. Mr. Lyon, Griswold charged, had disgraced himself more than once, including being dismissed with ignominy for cowardly behavior during the Revolutionary War. To a Congress full of war veterans, the insult was weighty. To call a man a war coward was not simply a jab, it was an affront to his honor. Lyon wasted no time closing the distance between himself and and Griswold, his eyebrows lowered like a cat waiting to pounce. Lyon spat tobacco juice directly at Griswold, the brown stain blooming like old blood. The chamber erupted. Federalists jumped to their feet and demanded the expulsion of a man such as this one. Democratic Republicans shouted back, howling that Griswold had no business provoking Lyon with such unproven the next morning, the newspapers had their headline the Spitting Lion. Tempers did not cool when the chambers emptied that night. For the next two weeks, the House of Representatives returned again and again to the same question. Should Matthew Lyon be expelled? The Federalists didn't have the necessary 2/3 vote, and every failed attempt to whip the votes only sharpened the bitterness between the factions. On February 14, 1798, a final vote was taken. The Federalists had failed to put together a coalition that would banish the Big Cat from their midst. Griswold was humiliated. The next morning, having decided to take matters into his own hands, Griswold strode across the House floor carrying a cane and brought the weapon down with a thud on Lion's head and shoulders. Hurt and infuriated, lion grabbed a set of large fireplace tongs kept beside the chamber hearth and swung back. The men Grappled and struck at first egged on by onlookers and finally torn apart by colleagues, newspaper readers the next day woke to lurid descriptions of congressman trading blows with government issued tools. Despite several attempts, neither Griswold nor Lyon was punished. The fight over the fate of the men hardened the plaster between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, solidifying the partisan lines that would shape the fate of the young republic. In the months that followed, Congress passed the Sedition act, and President John Adams would begin prosecuting his critics. The Sedition act made it a federal crime to publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writing aimed at bringing the President or Congress into contempt or disrepute. Federalists like Adams insisted it protected the nation in a moment of danger while conflict with Europe knocked. But Democratic Republicans saw it as a naked attempt to hold a sharpened knife to their throats. Lyon could not or would not adjust his behavior, publishing an essay in his newspaper accusing President Adams of having, quote, an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice. Federal marshals arrested Lyon, and he was put on trial before a Supreme Court justice who rode to Vermont to hear pending cases. Lyon maintained that the Sedition act violated the First Amendment, but Justice William Patterson told the jurors that Lyon's intent was what mattered. If his goal was to bring the President into contempt, it was a crime. For a few brief moments, Lyon hoped the Constitution would prevail. But the jury deliberated quickly, returning a conviction for the Spitting lion. His punishment, four months in jail and a $1,000 fine plus court costs, an amount that would cripple nearly any American of his class. And yet it was inside that cold, cribbed Vermont jail cell that Lyon became more powerful than the Federalists ever expected. Lyon channeled his anger onto scraps of paper, smuggling essays out through his friends. His supporters distributed his writings across Vermont, and voters began to pick up what Lyon was putting down. If the Adams administration could jail him for criticizing, the president could jail anyone. When the next round of congressional ballots were counted, Lyon, locked behind a stone wall, had been re elected to his seat in the House of Representatives by a comfort of margin. The Congress Lyon returned to in early 1799 was no longer divided between two parties that disagreed on the role of federal versus state governments. Now each party distrusted, resented, and feared what the other might do with its power. Under the original Constitution, electors did not cast separate votes for president and vice president. Each elector cast two votes for president, and the candidate with the most votes became president. While the runner up became vice president. It was the a design drafted in a world without political parties, one where the framers imagined intellectual gentlemen competing for office, but not organizing themselves into rival camps. By 1800, that world no longer existed. The Democratic Republicans planned for each of their electors to vote for Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, which with one elector withholding his second vote from Burr, so that Jefferson would finish with one more vote and become the nation's third president. But the plan failed. Whether through miscommunication or miscalculation, every Democratic Republican elector cast one vote for Jefferson and one for Burr, leaving them tied on the Federalist side. President John Adams was running for re election with Charles Pinkney, but they received fewer votes out of the gate than either Burr or Jefferson. Adams would not have a second term. The Constitution was clear if there was a tie in the electoral college. The decision of who would become president was kicked to the House of Representatives, where each state's delegation would cast a single vote. Ten weeks elapsed before Congress was scheduled to meet again. For 10 weeks, the infant nation knew not which course the House would chart. Jefferson or Burr. If you had to choose. Men discussed the question at taverns and in the pews of churches. For many, there was only one option. You could be on the side of the Lord, or you could vote for Thomas Jefferson. The president of Yale, Timothy Dwight, wrote that if Jefferson were to be elected, the Bible would, quote, be cast into a bonfire and children either wheedled or terrified would would be united enchanting mockeries against God and our wives and daughters would become the victims of legal prostitution. Another author summed up the choice plainly God and a religious president or impiously declare for Jefferson and no God. And yes, there were a lot of all caps in that sentence. Seventy days after the electors cast their ballots, which resulted in a tie between Jefferson and Burke, the House of Representatives assembled in the new unfinished capitol in Washington. Only a portion of the drafty building, still surrounded by scaffolding and stone, was usable. On the morning of February 11, 1801, the clerk opened the certificates of the electoral college and read aloud the numbers that had hung over the nation for 10 anxious weeks. Thomas Jefferson, 73 votes. Aaron Burr, 73 votes. It was now up to the House of Representatives to decide. The cold air from the unfinished walls shivered down the spines of the men who represented the interests of the 16 states. Nine states would be needed to choose a winner. The roll call of the states began. New Hampshire. Burr. Massachusetts. Burr. Pennsylvania. Jefferson. New Jersey. Jefferson. When the clerk called for Maryland And Vermont. Each state voted divided. The representatives of these states could not arrive at an agreement on whom to cast their ballot, for Jefferson had won eight states, Burr had taken six, and with two states undecided, there was no winner. The House has proceeded to a second ballot, the clerk announced, and then a third and then a fourth. Each time the numbers were the same. As the hours waned, the chamber tightened. Matthew Lyon and the other representative from Vermont, Lewis Morris, knew that as long as they failed to come to an agreement, their state would be silent in the election. The future hinged on a handful of men in a half finished room. The balloting stretched on for seven long days. On the morning of February 17, the house gathered again, the faces of the representatives etched by exhaustion. The Clerk began the 36th ballot. Nothing changed until the clerk reached Vermont, when the voice of Matthew Lyon said, not divided, but Jefferson. Vermont became the ninth state that Jefferson needed to win the election. Maryland too finally went for Jefferson, putting him more decisively over the threshold. Burr would become Jefferson's vice president. While holding that office, he would kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel. When his time in Washington expired, he would hatch a treasonous plot against the country. But that is scarcely a story we have time for now. If anything celebratory passed between the men in that room where it happened, history did not bother to record it. The annals of Congress captured nothing but the tally. No outburst, no applause, no acknowledgment of the moment that had carried the country there. But the truth sat quietly in the record all the same. When the constitutional machinery jammed and the young republic hovered between two consequential futures, the state that helped break the stalemate spoke through Matthew Lyon, the endangered servant who became a printer, the immigrant soldier, the Congressman who spat in a colleague's face, swung fireplace tongs in self defense, and wrote seditious essays from a stone jail cell. The Democratic Republican who favored a fate not tied to the perceived monarchical tendencies of the Federalists and his fellow New England Adams. He was not the kind of guardian the framers imagined, but at the exact moment the Republic needed one, he was the man who stood in the right place on the day it mattered most. Matthew Lyon, unrefined, uninvited, unafraid, helped save the American experiment. Next up, my interview with Congressman James Clyburn on his new book, the First Eight, about the eight black members of Congress who came before him in South Carolina. We talk about that, what's happening in the House right now, and a special connection we share. You know, I've been trying to make the most of my mornings lately. Coffee in hand, a few minutes to myself before the day starts. Lately I've been swapping doom scrolling for something that's actually inspiring, which is Masterclass. I started with Ryan Holiday's class on using ancient wisdom to solve modern problems and it has completely changed how I approached my day. The lessons are practical, they're bite sized and something that I can actually apply. I've even taken insights from the cooking classes with Thomas Keller and used them to try some new recipes for dinner. I mean, honestly, it feels like having a mentor in your pocket. With plans Starting at just $10 a month, billed annually, you can get unlimited access to over 200 classes across business, writing, cooking, science and more. 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Available now. Wherever you get your podcasts, you know what I look forward to most during the holidays? Those quiet, cozy moments. The ones where everyone's home, the lights are twinkling and we finally slow down. That's exactly what Cozy Earth is all about. I got their bamboo pajama set made from viscose from bamboo and it's honestly the softest thing I've ever worn. It's lightweight, it's breathable, and somehow keeps you warm without overheating. I also tried the bubble cuddle blanket and let's just say it has been permanently claimed by my family. The plush, textured feel is perfect for snuggling up by the fire or adding a little luxury to your couch. Cozy Earth just feels different. The quality, the comfort. It's the kind of gift that becomes part of your everyday life. Long after the holidays are over. Plus They've got a 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty so you can gift confidently give the gift of comfort that lasts beyond the holidays. This weekend only from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. Get 40% off@cozyearth.com with code Sharon. It's the best deal of the year. That's code Sharon for 40% off. And if you get a post purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Wrap the ones you love in luxury with Cozy Earth. I'm back now with Congressman James Clyburn. He has a brand new book, the First Eight about the eight black congressmen who came before him in South Carolina. He's also a prominent Democrat in House having served for more than 30 years. Congressman Clyburn, thank you so much for joining me today.