There has always been a strain of pro-business, anti-laissez faire sentiment in the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln, the party's patriarch, repeatedly indicated that he was strongly influenced by Henry Clay, a strong advocate of taxpayer funded internal improvements and protective tariffs. Clay was, in turn, influenced by Alexander Hamilton, the first champion of expansive Federal authority. A majority of the founders of the Republican Party were former Whigs, which was the party favored by manufacturers and wealthy people, including many Southern plantation owners. Alexander Stephens, the Confederate Vice President, was, like Lincoln, a former Whig.
The closest thing this country has had to a classical liberal party was the Democrats of the 19th Century. Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland were more libertarian than any Republican President, possibly excepting Harding and Coolidge. However, the rise of urban political machines such as Tammany Hall in the Northern cities in the late 19th Century and the rise of the Populist and Progressive movements in the 1890s and early 1900s moved the Democrats toward statism and, by the New Deal, socialism. By the 1930s, even moderate (pro-regulation) Republicans like Herbert Hoover seemed to be champions of liberty because the Democratic Party had moved leftward from the late 19th Century onward.
In the early 21st Century, the two parties have both become beholden to different factions of the elite: the Democrats to the entertainment, education, and tech industries and the Republicans to the energy, agribusiness, and military-industrial areas. Soros vs. Haliburton, if you will. Both parties have strong connections with overseas businessmen in China, the Middle East, and elsewhere. It is not a pretty picture, if you believe in limited government and free markets, but there you have it.
A VERY good summary.
Regrettably, not only do I have it, but so do the rest of us, and we are "having it" in a most unpleasant way.
Nailed it all - dead on!
The freaking elites of all stripes have been bleeding Americans dry ever since Congress got the power to spend on whatever they choose.