The country of France was in severe debt after helping to finance the American Revolution. Also, food shortages, especially bread, led to inflation of prices in the years just before the French Revolution broke out. (See image: Courtesy of weebly.com)
The fearful trip is all about the journey of America during the Civil War. Whitman used this phrase as a figure of speech to express their experience during the war. The poem was dedicated to Abraham Lincoln after his death.
Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to force the new Secretary of State, James Madison, to deliver the documents. The Court, with John Marshall as Chief Justice, found firstly that Madison's refusal to deliver the commission was both illegal and correctible. Nonetheless, the Court stopped short of ordering Madison (by writ of mandamus) to hand over Marbury's commission, instead holding that the provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that enabled Marbury to bring his claim to the Supreme Court was itself unconstitutional, since it purported to extend the Court's original jurisdiction beyond that which Article III established. The petition was therefore denied.
I'm not sure if that helped, but good luck :)
