One big example involves making a lot of US plantation-money sad and scared, so much that it started a civil-war.

Granted, that was more the exception than the rule...

> When has something like this ever happened?

Anything that used to be freely available but no longer is. Once upon a time Laudanum (tincture of opium) used to be the OTC painkiller of choice. In slightly more recent times, there's asbestos. In certain locales, gambling. There's countries that have reigned in lootboxes.

> It feels like legislature exists to make money happy.

Come on now, it doesn't just "feel" that way, you know for a fact that is indeed the purpose of the modern US legislature.