This just goes to show you that perhaps political ideology isn't absolute -- that there is a time and a place for everything. The Whig platform back in the 1840-1850s was simply this: national improvements, including a centralized banking system, construction of railroad networks (what you call "pork barrel" projects) -- whatever added to the physical and economic infrastructure of the nation to enhance the wealth of the nation. It was appropriate then, and put the US on a path which led to prosperity and the industrial revolution in the late 1800s, and made the US a world power by the turn of the Century. I don't begrudge them for any of this.
It WAS NOT appropriate back then nor is it appropriate now. lincoln's system was Clay's American System repackaged. Clay took his marching orders originally from the Hamiltonian school of thought. Hamilton wanted a President and Senate for life after election as well. Would you like that?
As a matter of fact, several northern states had tried these 'internal improvements' and had failed miserably. So much so that they were banned in most state constitutions by around 1850. So even then it was not an acceptable practive or a workable practice.