I agree with your assessment of Jefferson's views, but will say that I don't think it's much different than the rhetoric used my many today in arguing against protectionism. Economic conservatives/libertarians believe in pro-free market policies, not pro-business policies. Government should not take a proactive role in protecting business, giving them special favors/protections. etc. Government simply should get out of the way and let businesses succeed or FAIL on their own.
Such has not been the case historically, however. Opposition to government intervention in the economy
as a matter of principle is a relatively new phenomenon; in Jefferson's day, the battle over the tariff was waged between manufacturers in one corner, who favored a strong tariff to protect their interests, and an alliance of farmers and southern planters in the other, who opposed the tariff for the same self-interested reason. The former represented the Hamiltonian faction who organized as the Federalist Party and later merged with Henry Clay's "National" Republicans to become the Whig Party in the 1830s—and by every meaningful standard, they represented the conservative element in the politics of their time. Jeffersonian support for free trade sprung from the same well of distrust for centralized power, whether political or financial, that inspired their admiration for the French Revolution. Theirs was not a principled support for the free market, but a reflexive opposition to the expanding power of big business, which they saw as an existential threat to the republican nature of the United States much in the same way progressives today talk about campaign finance reform.
