The United States Declaration of Independence is prefaced by three fundamental values: freedom, equality, and self-government. Frederick Douglass in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass adopts these beliefs while frowning upon slavery, inequality, and ignorance.

Douglass, who was born into slavery, yearned for liberty. His master's wife, Sophia, noticed Douglass's curiosity to learn. Ignoring a ban to educate enslaved people, she started teaching Douglass the alphabet. Young Douglass continued learning from other white kids around him. Knowing how to read and write opened Douglass's eyes to the horrors of slavery. Douglass wrote in his memoir that “it opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but offered no ladder upon which to get out.” Although increasing one's awareness can at times be unbearable, Frederick Douglass understood that knowledge is the only key to freedom.

Douglass's work fought for racial equality and abolition of slavery. The writer believed that everyone deserves access to education and other human rights, regardless of their skin color. However, the slaveholders and overseers presented in Douglass's narrative are inhumane to those they enslave, separating them from their families and intentionally barring their access to education. In addition to that, they lived in perpetual fear of severe punishment. For these reasons, Douglass believed slavery to be a foreign and dehumanizing system. Towards the end of the Narrative, Douglass escaped to the North and joined the abolitionist movement.