The supreme court extends its powers by their decisions which sets a precedents knows as case law. This law is followed when lower courts make decisions. It decides if the laws congress is making are constitutional or if they can be overturned.
William McKinley was the president in the year 1900
In a confederacy, there is no such thing as a strong central government and the purpose of a confederacy is to protect the states in it from foreign incursion, not to solve domestic problems which are all handled by individual local governments. The articles of confederation established such a confederacy of the first states and they needed the constitution in order to turn into a federation.
And a slave-owner could, depending on how many slaves he ... argued that people naturally followed two types of law
