I was writing a memo just now, I wrote an unique and I just stopped and looked at it and realized it was wrong. My whole world had been turned upside down. Then I found this explanation and all is right with the world.
Liberty Party (1840) wanted to abolish slavery; Free Soil Party (1848) wanted to keep slavery from expanding into Western territories; American Party (Know-Nothings in 1854 & 1856) wanted to reduce immigration (nativism); Constitutional Union Party (1860) wanted a compromise between the North & South.
Abraham Lincoln belonged to the Republican Party, so the roots of the party are in individual freedom and the abolition of slavery. Indeed, 82% of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 while only 69% of Democrats did.