Abraham Lincoln was a liberal. A liberal Republican, who would despise everything what GOP of 2021 stands for. One could make a strong argument that Lincoln is not only the greatest liberal reformer in U.S. history, but in all of secular human history.
Don't think Lincoln was a liberal? Then look at the record: Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 - [archives.gov]
Good point! And decades later, another Republican (whose likeness is adjacent to Lincoln's on Mount Rushmore) dared utter these sentiments:
"I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective-a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”
"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done…Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.”
"One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.”
Theodore Roosevelt
True, TR was an imperialist in his foreign policy, but in the area of socio-economic policies, as well as his views on preserving natural resources, he was pretty damned progressive for his time!