Back then, “liberal” referred to people Americans now call “conservative.” The meaning of the term, in the US only, was given its American Newspeak - essentially inverted - meaning in the 1920s (source: Safire's New Political Dictionary).
'LIBERAL. Of political opinions: Favourable to constitutional changes and legal or administrative reforms tending in the direction of freedom and democracy. Hence used as the designation of the party holding such opinions, in England or other states; opposed to Conservative.'
I imagine the 'tending in the direction of freedom...' bit might be rather startling to a modern American reader!
Classical liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology that emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in Europe and the United States.[1] It shares a number of beliefs with other belief systems belonging to liberalism, advocating civil liberties and political freedom, limited government, rule of law, and belief in free market.[2][3][4] Classical liberalism is built on ideas that had already arisen by the end of the 18th century, such as selected ideas of Adam Smith, John Locke, Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo, stressing the belief in free market and natural law,[5] utilitarianism,[6] and progress.[7] Classical liberals were more suspicious than conservatives of all but the most minimal government[8] and, adopting Thomas Hobbes's[citation needed] theory of government, they believed government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from one another.[9]