while that may true, If compare basic beliefs of a Republican in the 1800′s to the ones today, you would see they are hardly recognizable

The Republicans of the 1800s are not the same as the Republicans today. In fact, the modern day “conseratives” that form the majority of GOP started off as a faction known as the “New Right,” whose politics are defined by so-called “neo-liberal”/supply-side/”trickle down” economics (support of low but regressive taxation, elimination of most regulation of businesses, opposition to spending on social insurance and other social programs), an aggressive “neo-conserative” foreign policy and support of high defense spending, and a social conservatism tempered by evangelical/fundamentalist Christian Protestantism (basically, they support “small government” until social issues come up; regulation of greenhouses gasses is big, bad government, but if the gay couple down the road wants to get married…). The most well-known and/or influential members of the New Right were Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. & Jr., and Newt Gingrich. Before these men and their ilk came to be the face of the GOP and their politics its ideological bedrock, Republicans were a far more moderate party. Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and even Nixon supported many policies that would be considered anathema to the current Republican party, and none of them would be considered “conservatives” in the contemporary sense of the term. Basically, the current ideological divide between the two major political parties manifested itself gradually over the 60s, 70s, & 80s as the “New Right” came to dominate the GOP and conservative Southern Democrats left their party to join the Republicans. The Republican party might be “The Party of Lincoln,” but that’s certainly not in any ideological sense.

TL&DR version of the above: The political parties of today are not the same ideologically as they were many decades ago. Like everything else, they change over time. Any attempt to link the present incarnation of a party to its past incarnation, whether it’s for taking credit or laying blame, will instantly fail. 50 years from now, it’s possible that the Dems may be the conservative party while the GOP becomes the liberal party. They’ll go wherever factionalism takes them.

Also, MLK was not a conservative. If you actually bothered to read some of his speeches, he comes across as rather leftist if not downright socialist. I recommend “Beyone Vietnam” for starters.

Thanks ‘Mega’ for, however unintentionally, conflating Fox ‘news’ with the Republican party. This was a parody of Fox ‘news’, a fact which seems to have sailed right past you. While Fox is a willing mouthpiece for the Republicans, they are not, in fact, the same thing. In fact, if viewed on a historical timeline, even Republicans aren’t ‘Republican’ any more. Do you REALLY think they’d be the ones trying to preserve the Union, or wouldn’t they just be talking about how it should be a states-rights issue and that the free market system should be allowed to operate any damn way it chose, even if that meant one group of people were completely disenfranchised? You know, just like they do today!