Were the Republican Party today, called the Democrats before Lincolns days as President?

The first Republican Party was that of Jefferson which is unrelated to the modern Republican Party. After a while it was called the Democratic-Republican Party, and after Andrew Jackson the Democratic Party. The modern Republican Party was a combination of Free Soil Democrats and Abolitionist Whigs. Abraham Lincoln was always a business Whig until his anti-slavery views caused him to support the Republican Party.

The Republican Party was always the party of business as they had absorbed all of the Whigs. For many years liberals and blacks were Republicans. This began to change after the crash of 1929. Business conservatives were blamed for the resulting Great Depression and a great many people became New Deal Democrats. The transformation became complete when the Southern Strategy of Nixon recruited segregationists to the Republican side. The current Tea Party is just the most recent radical populist group to form. It seems likely they will cause the demise of the Republican Party as they have gained the balance of power and are beginning to lose the center. This is what happened to the Federalists and to the Whigs, so history seems to be repeating itself.

The names have stayed the same, but their policies have changed over time. The Republican Party of Lincoln opposed the democrats of his time seceding from the nation and throwing the country into civil war. Over the decades, the Democratic Party adopted more populist views and began supporting freedom and equal rights for all Americans, which caused southern democrats to reject the party and create their own segregationist Dixiecrat party, led by Strom Thurmond. The Dixiecrat party couldn't win, and most of their party joined with the Republican Party to back Goldwater and 'states rights'......the right for states to still segregate and discriminate against black Americans. By the time the civil rights act of 1964 came to pass, northern democrats all voted for it, while southern republicans and all voted against it.

Abe would be a Democrat today.