United they win: Two Fox Chapel juniors earn Lincoln-themed national essay prizes

Two Fox Chapel High School juniors are winners in the essay contest of the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America – two of only three kids from Pennsylvania among the 60 honored nationwide.

Colleen Hamilton and Lisa Liu have each won $100 and will be headed to Washington, D.C. to participate in a model Congress, called the 2012 Congressional Seminar, and to tour the capitol.

Colleen Hamilton, of O’Hara Township, says she was encouraged to enter the competition by Jennifer Klein, who teaches a “Government and Political Science” course in 12th grade – a course Hamilton is looking forward to taking.

She admits she didn’t know much about the Society – a 120-year-old group that promotes the country’s national heritage with historic preservation, service, and educational projects – but she was certain our times could still use the lessons of the contest’s theme: Abraham Lincoln’s famous pronouncement, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

“That’s clearly a huge issue in the political realm right now,” she says, “seeing that nothing much is being done, considering the divisions between the conservative and liberal parties. Both parties really need to work on compromising.”

The 16-year-old says it’s still early for college plans: “I’m interested in economics at the moment, but I’m really still exploring.”

Kidsburgh is pleased to present her winning essay here:

Divided We Stand: The Modern Day Reality of Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Statement

By Colleen Hamilton

Over 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the most well-known speeches in American history: the “House Divided” speech.  That speech provided a clear portrayal of America’s situation at that time, addressing the issue of slavery and the nation’s division into slave states and free states. Lincoln warned that a house divided cannot stand—in other words, the country could not continue to exist with both slave states and free states.  As history has shown, this warning about divisions within the nation has continued to be relevant ever since Lincoln’s speech.  The United States is currently in an economic crisis, and divisions within the country have created a stalemate in the process to recovery.   One of the primary barriers to fixing our economic problems is the division between the two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans.

Divisions have marked America’s history: patriots vs. loyalists, imperialists vs. anti-imperialists, slavery advocates vs. abolitionists, advocates of foreign entanglement vs. isolationists, etc.  One type of division has characterized most of America’s history: the division between political parties.  At one time the division was between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, but in current day it is between the Republicans and Democrats.  Regardless of their names, political parties have served to spark debate, provide citizens with choices, and act as a check on extreme views.  Often the separation of parties has aided the growth of America, bringing different ideas together to bring as much prosperity as possible. However, parties have also sometimes led to an unproductive clash of opinions that has hindered the nation’s progress.  At the present time, the clash has not aided the country whatsoever, but instead caused a bitter divide and inability to compromise.  The views of those on each side of the party line have become, for much of the population, so set in stone that adjusting their aims would be practically taboo.  The United States is currently in a position of great division, which may lead to it not being able to stand.

A few examples illustrate the major problems caused by the division between Republicans and Democrats. One recent example is the Supercommittee that the President convened to develop ideas to deal with the nation’s growing budget deficit.  This committee included both democrats and republicans and was asked to work together to identify ways to reduce the budget deficit, but ultimately was unable to compromise sufficiently to come up with a workable plan.  This failure made it clear that the current society is one in which complete tenacity against one’s opposing party is rewarded, and compromise is seen as a crime against one’s party. Another example is the threat of government shutdown that occurred several times in the past year. Even though a shutdown would create enormous challenges for people who are dependent on government support, members of Congress seemed willing to allow it to happen in order to avoid compromising.  Despite the parties’ agreement on many issues, there are certain items on which they seem to be unwilling to compromise. For instance, Republicans are opposed to raising taxes under almost any circumstances, and Democrats object to many proposed reductions in programs like Medicare.

Looking at the U.S.’s current economic crisis, some sort of real measures need to be taken within the U.S. to help end the crisis.  Both parties agree with the need for action.  Be that as it may, that basic agreement is completely superfluous without each side being willing to put forth a collaborative effort to solve it.  Both the Republicans and Democrats are resolutely determined that their views are correct and that their approaches would benefit society more than their opponents’ approaches.  Due to the unwillingness of each side to collaborate or compromise, the houses of Congress are gridlocked.  No truly effective laws are being passed.  Ideas are being slung back and forth between the houses and between the parties without the creation of any final decisions.

America was built to stand united, but its current state of unification leaves much to be divided.  A country cannot properly function if it and its government are split along a barrier of contrasting beliefs.  Lincoln’s message was an eerily accurate depiction of America at his time and at the current time.  Many people have forgotten the basic truth in the main focus of the House Divided speech; in order for the United States to return to functionality, efforts need to be made to address the stark division between parties in America or America will fall.