Was the Republican Party at first a Liberal Party?

Imagine a new party starts. You don't care so much about their main objective, and you want to know how they stand on your favorite subject. Party leaders consider your wishes, and they don't conflict with the rest of the party platform, so they bend a little to cater to your preference. The other party (or parties) do the same process, and their platform gets softened a little. Pretty soon the parties are so similar that they have to adopt colors so people can keep track of which is which. It is quite normal for parties to swap sides over a long period of time. That is why we have a red party, a blue party, and a green party.

If a party wants a change, that is called "liberal". If they get the change then of course they want to maintain the status quo, and that is called "conservative". But the party can't change their name because the opposition party is called "conservative". This only has to happen once for the words to lose their meanings and become nothing more than "us" and "them".