Those powers of which you speak are moot when the combined branches of government are arrayed against freedom and personal responsibility. Each branch is totally infested with ideologues that will negate all the protections.
It used to be that basic human wrongs (e.g., segregation in Little Rock Arkansas, Alabama with Wallace, et al) were protected and corrected even though if you’d have run a poll then, it likely wouldn’t have come down on the side of right. The Law ruled.
Today, it isn’t like that. Established law does not rule; you can see the effects of that nearly every single day with the arbitrary (and illegal) orders of Obama, Holder, liberal judges, and even in Congress.
Today, Law does not rule - Tyrants do, and there isn’t a peaceful process to be rid of them that I know of.
The powers are real. We can do an end run around the DC ruling class and reestablish the rule of law.
The tyranny of consolidated government that evolved these past hundred years since the 17th Amendment, was predicted by the framers. Until vertical separation of powers is restored, the paper horizontal separation of three national branches will continue to collapse into an authoritarian government.