I would have to disagree. Ideas have consequences that are often unseen or transparent in their simplest of forms. As a perfect example, one need only look at the horrific conclusions of David Hume to see the problems of his seemingly benign predecessor John Locke, who is often very appealing to conservatives on first glimpse.
Years after the fact, that which is built upon earlier precedents can emerge as a beast of untold size and horror. In those respects, Lincoln's actions were a recipe for what we have today.
If we can design taxes for the purpose of giving unfair advantages to a certain few at the expense of the rest, what is to stop us from simply allocating policy to advantage acertain few? If we can appropriate interventionary funding to the advantage of a certain economic entity over its competitors, what is to stop wider scale economic management and intervention by the government later? It may sound like a slippery slope because it is, but more so the policies such as those favored by The Lincoln allowed a foot in the door, which was incrementally pried open over the century that followed.
What is slavery, but a way of "giving unfair advantages to a certain few at the expense of" others -- and a way a good deal more savage than any protective tariff could be. That "foot" was already in the "door," and Lincoln's generation did much to get it out. To extract the profits of uncompensated labor and to use the resources of others to protect that compelled labor source dwarfs anything the Republican party ever did.
Every system of law, government, ownership, reward, or taxation will benefit some groups more than others. We are all on a "slippery slope" to unfair favor or tyranny or chaos and always have been. It was certainly true that the suppressed classes of the Old Republic saw unfair favor and tyranny exercised over their own lives. And it has been true since. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. But tariffs and trade duties are a question for political debate and discussion. When all those concerned are given a say in determining tariff levels and they exercise their voice effectively, tariffs are not in themselves acts of tyranny, and it's foolish to think them such.
On balance, though, Lincoln's influence brought greater liberty. Whether Lincoln's tariff policies were for the best is open to debate, but if you ignore or discount the connection felt at the time -- using tariffs to promote a free labor, industrial economy rather than an agrarian, slave, neo-colonial economy -- you don't do justice to Lincoln's generation and the alternatives they faced. Lincoln's policies may not have been the best choice, but Calhoun's marriage of free trade, slavery, and minority rule certainly deserved -- and deserves -- repudiation and condemnation.
And today, those who have expressed concern about globalization and the developing "New World Order" would perhaps agree that free trade does not necessarily bring freedom, nor protectionism inevitably result in tyranny.