How did americans respond to xyz affair

A commission had been sent to France in 1797 to discuss the disputes that had arisen out of the U.S.'s refusal to honor the Franco-American Treaty of 1778.President Adams had criticized the French Revolution, so France began to break off relations with the U.S. Adams sent delegates to meet with the French foreign minister Talleyrand in the hopes of working things out. Talleyrand's three agents told the American delegates that they could meet with Talleyrand only in exchange for a very large bribe. Tallyrand's agents told them that Tallyrand requested a $250,000 bribe and that France can get a loan of $12 million. The Americans did not pay the bribe. 

The answer is society was a caste like system with poor whites at the bottom of the white social ladder.