Fireworks explode over Lake Ogawara during Lights on the Lake, a Labor Day event, at Misawa Air Base, Japan, Sept. 1, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Koby Mitchell)

As we get closer to honor America at 250, it seems like not everyone wants to celebrate.

For just one example, some deliberate damage has recently been inflicted on our nation’s capital in order to sabotage America’s 250th anniversary celebration.

* Writes Anthony Blair in the New York Post: “Vandals sabotaged generators at President Trump’s Freedom 250 event, according to a spokeswoman – and fuel leached into underground water tanks, contaminating them.”

* And, of course, we keep hearing about celebrities now refusing to participate in America at 250 events, reportedly because they don’t like President Trump. Even Bill Maher notes that such actions can make it appear that they “don’t really love America.”

* Another story speaks of a large swath of Americans who are not happy about the nation, regardless of its 250th birthday. Greg Price notes in a post on X: “According to a new Elon University/YouGov poll, a full *55%* of Democrats said that they would rather live in a different country than the United States. Only 10% of Republicans said the same.”

In short, not every American is happy about America at 250 – to put it mildly. That’s astounding – especially when you consider those who will risk their lives to come here, to try and get a shot at the potential opportunities America can still offer.

Meanwhile, it is worthy of note that when America experienced its first major birthday of sorts – that of fifty years – two of the prominent signers and designers of American independence both died on that very day. On July 4, 1826, both Thomas Jefferson, chief author of the Declaration of Independence, and John Adams, a key founding father who 50 years earlier had suggested that Jefferson write it, breathed their last.

In his home at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, the 83-year-old Thomas Jefferson died.

Later that same day, the 90-year-old John Adams expired in his family estate in Quincy, Massachusetts. Before he died, Adams said, “Jefferson lives,” not realizing that was no longer true.

Even if later in life, they may have become more liberal in their religious views, both men had a Biblical worldview when it comes to this: They both affirmed that God is the source of our rights.

Years earlier, as the storm clouds of the Revolutionary War were brewing, John Adams wrote: “I would ask by what law the parliament has authority over America? By the law in the Old and New Testament it has none; by the law of nature and nations it has none … The two characteristics of this people, religion and humanity, are strongly marked in all their proceedings. We are not exciting a rebellion. Resistance by arms against usurpation and lawless violence is not rebellion by the law of God or the land. Resistance to lawful authority makes rebellion.”

Jefferson and Adams had had a good relationship at first – during the time they served in the second Continental Congress and beyond.

But later, during the ugly 1800 campaign for the presidency that pitted John Adams against Thomas Jefferson, the two had a major falling out.

After both were long out of the White House, however, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a mutual friend and key founding father in his own right, helped get John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to patch things up. History should thank them all for this.

On June 28, 1813, John Adams wrote Thomas Jefferson: “The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite. … And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.”

Of course, Jefferson said famously in the Declaration that we are endowed by our Creator with our rights. Therefore, they are inalienable.

In a different context, Jefferson wrote (to John Manners, June 12, 1817): “The evidence of this natural right, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of kings.”

Perhaps some Americans today don’t realize that Jefferson’s reference here is to Jesus Christ, whom the Bible calls “the King of kings.” 

While some Americans today may not seem to appreciate America at 250, it’s nice to reflect on what Thomas Jefferson and John Adams appreciated about America at 50. God-given rights are non-negotiable. That was true in 1776, in 1826, and in 2026.