"A lot of you people don't know that Lincoln was a Republican..your schools have failed you."
Even more people don't know that Republicans back then were basically the Democrats of today (and vice versa). Both parties essentially transitioned to being the other, especially during:
- 1896: William Jennings Bryan brought the Populist Party into the fold
- 1912: Theodore Roosevelt runs as a Progressive, rather than a Republican, highly fracturing the the Republican Progressives
- 1932-45: Franklin Roosevelt adopts most of said Progressive platform into the Democratic party, esp. social policy
- 1964: Lyndon Johnson makes civil rights part of the Democratic platform, which made them lose the majority of southern whites
It's more complicated than that, of course, but those are the biggest turning points.
Point is, though: the Republicans of today are NOT the "party of Lincoln". Ignore those who make that claim, as it doesn't take much more than a cursory glance at U.S. history to disprove it.