While many favoured such discriminations as might eventually turn the commerce of the United States into new channels, others maintained that, on this subject, equality ought to be observed; that trade ought to be guided by the judgment of individuals, and that no sufficient motives existed for that sacrifice of general and particular interests, which was involved in the discriminations proposed;--discriminations which, in their view, amounted to a tax on American agriculture, and a bounty on the navigation and manufactures of a favoured foreign nation.
The former opinion was taken up with warmth by the secretary of state; and the latter was adopted with equal sincerity by the secretary of the treasury.

This contrariety of sentiment respecting commercial regulations was only a part of a general system.

It extended itself to all the relations which might subsist between America and those two great powers.
In all popular governments, the press is the most ready channel by which the opinions and the passions of the few are communicated to the many; and of the press, the two great parties forming in the United States, sought to avail themselves.

The Gazette of the United States supported the systems of the treasury department, while other papers enlisted themselves under the banners of the opposition.

Conspicuous among these, was the National Gazette, a paper edited by a clerk in the department of state.