Some. Most Republicans just wanted (most) rights of citizenship for all men, rather than for some. If you look at what they passed, it's not exactly unreasonable. The only unreasonable thing is the speed with which they hoped to make major social transformations, and that was ultimately their downfall.

Before the Civil War, they were not self-righteous at all. Nor did they even interfere with slavery. All they wanted was to ban slavery in the territories, as they respected the rights of the South. Lincoln himself repeatedly warned against self-righteousness, telling his audiences that if they had been Southerners, they would not be keen to abolish slavery either.