Lincoln became President soon after the Republican Party was formed. Wasn't he their second nominee? He was totally opposed to any kind of autonomy or states rights for the south. An interesting thing that came up in some research someone did yesterday is that he's the one who signed the purchase of Nevada's territory, and the fine print is what gave the feds permission to change the conditions of ownership; to replace state authority with federal authority.
So, yeah, I'm beginning to wonder just what the original Republican Party stood for.
The Republican Party started as the "anti-Nebraska" party--in reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act which opened up the possibility that new slave states might be formed in areas which slavery had been banned by the Missouri Compromise. They stood for the "free soil" position--to stop the spread of slavery in the hopes that that would doom the institution, but not trying to interfere with it where it was already established.
I think on the whole their economic policies resembled those of the Whig Party. Lincoln was a big admirer of Henry Clay.
Ironically, Nebraska has voted Republican in Presidential elections most of the time, except in landslides like 1936 and 1964. (Of late the district system has allowed the Democratic nominee to win one electoral vote in Nebraska.)