After the war, Grant led the military supervision of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Elected president in 1868, he stabilized the nation in a turbulent period and fought the Ku Klux Klan using the army and the newly created Justice Department, while reinforcing the Republican party in the south of the country. In the elections, Republicans won in eleven states and some African-Americans were elected to positions in the national administration, but the black minority began to be attacked in the south despite Grant's attempts to protect them. In 1871 the president founded the Civil Service Commission to appease the reformers. A year later, he won the election again by winning a coalition of Republican Democrats and Liberals. In the southern states, the Republican coalitions split and were defeated in favor of the so-called "Redeemers of the South," a white faction that resorted to violence, electoral fraud and racism. To this were added several corruption scandals that peppered members of the federal administration. Grant's Peace Policy with the Native Americans was a bold starting point but ended up being a failure.
In 1833, Jackson retaliated against the bank by removing federal government deposits and placing them in "pet" state banks. But as the economy overheated and so did state dreams of infrastructure projects. Congress passed a law in 1836 that required the federal surplus to be distributed to the states in four payments.
Settling the Borderlands As conquistadors explored new territories, they claimed the areas for Spain. By 1600, the Spanish borderlands extended west from Florida across present-day Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. At first, Spain did little to encourage settlement in these far-flung areas.
