* Learning. By learning to read and write, freed people could expand their intellect.
* Knowledge is Power. He recognized acquiring the means to **acquire knowledge provided a route to emancipation.
* Education is Liberation. Douglass wrote: "Once you learn to read, you will forever be free because reading will lift you to heights unforeseen." This freedom applied intellectually and, through reading the Bible and newspapers, spiritually and politically, respectively.
* Social/Civic Engagement. Beyond self-enlightenment, Douglass hoped the enslaved, through access to literacy, would rise, question their circumstances, agitate for rights, organize, engage politically, fight to abolish servitude for all, and gain full civic equality.