The Rail Splitter of Cincinnati was a Republican newspaper supporting the presidential candidacy of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.  It was published weekly from August 1 through October 17, 1860, with a final edition on October 27.  J. B. McKeehan and J. H. Jordan edited the first eight issues, with articles written by McKeehan designated by a cross and those written by Jordan by an asterisk.  McKeehan edited the last five issues by himself, with Jordan contributing an article criticizing Stephen Douglas, the Northern Democratic presidential nominee, on the last page of the final issue.

 The masthead logo of The Rail Splitter was a flattering portrait of a beardless Abraham Lincoln appearing over a caption from poet Alexander Pope, “An Honest Man’s the Noblest Work of God.”  That image was flanked by partisan and patriotic references to free soil, free labor, free speech, the Constitution, and the American flag.  The newspaper motto—“Right Is Might”—underlined a commitment to morality as the foundation for justice rather than to unprincipled strength for imposing self-interest (“Might Makes Right”).  It encapsulated the argument for liberty over slavery.

 Articles in The Rail Splitter concentrated on attacking Stephen Douglas, who was the biggest threat to Lincoln’s electoral success in Ohio.  The newspaper assailed Douglas’s political record and his views on popular sovereignty and related issues.  Referring implicitly to the Dred Scott decision that opened the Western territories to slavery, the journal condemned the Democratic Party, particularly Douglas Democrats, for attempting to elevate the Supreme Court to a “dangerous position” above “the Congress, the President, the Constitution, and even the people themselves—and to make it the arbiter of political as well as judicial questions…”  The Rail Splitter denied that the Constitution recognized slaves as property, whether in slave states or the territories. 

 The Rail Splitter accused Douglas of being a Roman Catholic, which was a political liability at the time.  (He was not Catholic, but his second wife, Adčle, was.)  On the positive side, the newspaper promoted Lincoln as honest and capable, and reprinted his speeches and those of other prominent Republicans.  Additional items included campaign-related excerpts from other papers, plus a few jokes and poems of a political nature.  The third page of all but two of the issues featured a political cartoon by Thee Jones, which emphasized the sectionalism of the divided Democratic Party. 

The Rail Splitter of Cincinnati was not affiliated with The Rail Splitter of Chicago except by political allegiance to Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party.