"Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
"Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
"In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."
The text of the Constitution established the Supreme Court as the highest court and grants that body the authority over all cases arising under the Constitution and Federal laws. The question arises: did the framers of the Constitution intend for Federal courts to rule on the Constitutionality of Federal legislation? Remember that under the English system of government from which our own derived, the independence of the judiciary was not fully established. For the answer, we must turn to The Federalist Papers.
In Federalist Paper No. 81, Alexander Hamilton addressed the fears of the anti-Federalists that the Supreme Court would be vested with an authority superior to that of the legislature (Congress). He pointed out that most of the states already had a similar body, separate from the legislature, although New York, Hamilton's home state, did not. He further states: "In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which DIRECTLY empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State. I admit, however, that the Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of the convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution..."
In other words, while the Supreme Court was to recognize the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, it was not to interpret Federal law according to a "spirit of the Constitution," what 20th Century conservatives sneered at as auras and penumbrances. Further, the Constitution was limited in nature. Additionally, Hamilton wrote this prior to the consideration of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which clearly restricted Federal power to those areas specifically delineated in the Constitution.
With respect to the power of judicial review, Hamilton noted that neither British nor American precedent permitted the legislature to overturn specific judicial decisions. However, he also affirmed the primary role of the Congress in establishing the correct interpretation of the Constitution. "A legislature, without exceeding its province, cannot reverse a determination once made in a particular case; though it may prescribe a new rule for future cases. This is the principle, and it applies in all its consequences, exactly in the same manner and extent, to the State governments, as to the national government now under consideration." Hamilton is stating that Congress, and not the Supreme Court, is the ultimate arbiter of Constitutionality. Keep in mind that Hamilton, of the Founding Fathers, was the most receptive to a loose interpretation of the Constitution.
The doctrine of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of Constitutional matters was established in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison. In that case, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the Supreme Court would be the arbiter of the Constitutionality of congressional legislation. This declaration would appear to be in disagreement with Hamilton's Federalist Papers arguments, although both men were of the Federalist Party. That this role was questioned by prominent Americans is evident in Andrew Jackson's statement that the Supreme Court had made a decision (relative to a treaty with the Five Civilized Tribes), they, and not he, should enforce it. Abraham Linclon refused to honor a writ of habeas corpus from Chief Justice Taney, under Lincoln's interpretation of the wartime powers of the Presidency.
That the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of Constitutional matters did not appear to be the intention of the Framers, as evidenced by Hamilton's writings. By this interpretation, had the Supreme Court in 1918 ruled the military draft un-Constitutional(which it did not), the Congress, which passed the Selective Service Act, could have deemed it Constitutional. The high court's 1918 decision makes a good case for states to conscript men into military service, but does not do so for the Federal government. Rather, it rested on the doctrine of "implied powers," i.e., if the Constitution authorized a military establishment, it also implied the Federal government's power to conscript men into that establishment. However, the doctrine of implied powers flies in the face of the restrictions on Federal authority in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
The Federal Constitution should be amended, by the same process as used to prohibit alcohol or establish an income tax, to establish Federal authority for the draft.
Why? The authority is already, de facto, in place through the constitutional right to raise armies (it doesn't say hire armies or ask for armies), the right to call the militia into service (all able bodied men) and the supreme court agreeing with congress that this is constitutional. If anything, an ammendment would be required to forbid the draft. Perhaps you should try that route if you oppose the draft that strongly since, as it stands now, the draft can be instituted by congress at will.