Northern states favored high tariffs as it protected their industries from European competition while Southern states hated them because it impeded their exports of cotton to attack star mills of Great Britain.
But in the past few months it has taken a harder line and pressed on with pollution controls, hitting coalminers, cement-makers, paper mills, chemical factories, textile firms and more.
On the day of my first hangover I'm going on nineteen, I've been accepted at the state university, and I have a mill job waiting for me when the class trip is over.