It most likely separated the church.
The Tyler and Polk administrations
Both administrations strongly supported American westward expansion.
John Tyler pressed for the annexation of Texas as a slave state during his administration (1841-45) and at the end of it, he signed a Texas annexation bill into law, which was admitted as a state in the first year of Polk's presidency.
James K. Polk, who ruled from 1845 to 1849, also supported American expansion to the point he led the U.S. into the Mexican-American War (1846-48) in which the U.S. gained what is today California and much of the present-day Southwest.
In 1493, Pope Alexander VI settled the conflict between Spain and Portugal over the newly discovered lands outside Europe in the Treaty of Tordesillas. It was the Pope who had to settle the argument because Spain didn't have enough military power in the Atlantic to fight the Portuguese, so they preferred a diplomatic settlement. The Pope divided the lands along an imaginary line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands; the lands of the East were to belong to Portugal, and the lands of the West were for Spain.
