Yes, those symbols are what defines them.
As for some sort of shift from republican to democrat, or democrat to republican, conservative to liberal or liberal to conservative, the only people that recognizes such a shift are those that need it to prove their point. I see The GOP as still the party of Lincoln, wrong is always wrong and slavery was wrong, and anything you can show me that would suggest that Lincoln was willing to allow the south to maintain slavery through legislation or a constitutional amendment, just proves my point that Lincoln wanted an open debate of the issue as well as a vote to decide it.
The southern democrats knew they could not win any debates or votes on the issue of slavery and quit this nation because they didn't have the balls to stand up for what they wanted legally and politically.
Tell me truthfully would you rather be a citizen of say South Carolina, or a citizen of the United States? That is the real reality of states rights, that the individual state has the right to be its own entity and its own sovereignty but the reality is that by joining the union the states surrendered at least that part of their sovereignty that allowed them to protect themselves from all enemies foreign and domestic(other states) it was a trade off most would make and did for the security of being part of a more prefect union which guaranteed basic human rights for all of its citizens.
The Republican party was created to define what is a citizen and who deserved the basic human rights as defined by the constitution. In short Republicans believed that all are created equal and still do today, democrats still seem to cling to the notion that some are more equal then others especially if you have a block of voters to prove it.
You probably believe Batman is real too.
As for some sort of shift from republican to democrat, or democrat to republican, conservative to liberal or liberal to conservative, the only people that recognizes such a shift are those that need it to prove their point.
Either you understand history well enough to recognize such shifts or you don't. Apparently you don't.
... anything you can show me that would suggest that Lincoln was willing to allow the south to maintain slavery through legislation or a constitutional amendment, just proves my point that Lincoln wanted an open debate of the issue as well as a vote to decide it.
That's a funny thing to post on a thread about one of Lincoln's letters to governors about ratifying the Corwin Amendment making slavery permanent. I understand from the comments of others on these threads in the past that he worked behind the scenes to promote the amendment.
As Lincoln said in his letter to Horace Greeley:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Whatever else he instigated the war for, he certainly needed revenue and exports from the South or else he would face a serious balance of payments problem and its resulting inflation. Spending and new debt by the central government was out of control before he got into power.
Tell me truthfully would you rather be a citizen of say South Carolina, or a citizen of the United States?
Maybe it's a Texas thing for some Texans of my generation, but I consider myself a citizen of Texas and therefore a citizen of the United States, not the other way around. Sort of the way Robert E. Lee thought of Virginia. Years ago my grandparents drove many miles to get back into Texas so that my aunt could be born in Texas.
The southern democrats knew they could not win any debates or votes on the issue of slavery and quit this nation because they didn't have the balls to stand up for what they wanted legally and politically.
The Southern Democrats were realists who had counted the votes in the new Congress and knew they were outvoted. For example, Southern wealth was going to be transferred to the North through the mechanism of the Morrill Tariff which a Republican-dominated House had passed in 1860. The South didn't have the votes to stop it from passing in the Senate.
As Texas said in their Ordinance of Secession:
They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
Northern states were ignoring the Constitution with respect to the return of fugitive slaves in spite of the fact that they had agreed to that part of the Constitution originally. Lincoln did agree to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, but I suspect (but could be wrong) so had Buchanan.
Some Republicans said they were for laws higher than the Constitution -- which basically meant they could justify things that the Constitution prohibited. What good were Constitutional guarantees in such a situation?