[4CJ]

With President Lincoln at the helm, the United States defeated the Confederacy in the Civil War and preserved the union. Lincoln's Republican ideals of freedom for all began to heal the national rift between the North and the South.

Lincoln was a Whig, and advocated economic policies (higher taxes, protective tarrifs, federal subsidies for business, a national bank and paper money (inflationary) and pork-barrel projects, etc.) that todays modern Republican Party opposes. His suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was declared unconstitutional by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, yet Lincoln refused to comply with the decision. Almost 14,000 northerners were illegally and unconsitutionally jailed for voicing dissent againt Lincoln, and hundreds of northern newspapers were closed despite the 1st amendemnt protections of a free press. Additionally Lincoln favored colonization/repatriation of blacks, not equal treatment as American citizens. At least Mr. Zak can get the history correct.

That said, I consider myself republican/libertarian because of the "modern" party platform - smaller government - more personal freedoms, less taxes, and the recognition of states rights an limited, enumerated federal powers. The government envisioned by my favorite President, Ronald W. Reagan.

"It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government."
Ronald W. Reagan, 1st Inaugural Address, 20 Jan 1981.

[My2Cents]

Lincoln was a Whig, and advocated economic policies (higher taxes, protective tarrifs, federal subsidies for business, a national bank and paper money (inflationary) and pork-barrel projects, etc.) that todays modern Republican Party opposes.

This just goes to show you that perhaps political ideology isn't absolute -- that there is a time and a place for everything. The Whig platform back in the 1840-1850s was simply this: national improvements, including a centralized banking system, construction of railroad networks (what you call "pork barrel" projects) -- whatever added to the physical and economic infrastructure of the nation to enhance the wealth of the nation. It was appropriate then, and put the US on a path which led to prosperity and the industrial revolution in the late 1800s, and made the US a world power by the turn of the Century. I don't begrudge them for any of this.