Answer the following prompts in an essay of 5-6 well-developed paragraphs. Be sure to use specific references and quotations for support.
In "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," Frederic Douglass uses his admiration of the principles set forth in The Declaration of Independence to criticize the U.S. Government's and American society's continued sanctioning of slavery in 1851. How can Nicholas Lemann's argument in "In the Ruins" be understood as a similar appeal to mythic American values?