On October 22, 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke on the courthouse grounds in Carthage, where he spent much of his address defending himself against Stephen A. Douglas's recent accusations that he was too close to large railroad companies and had helped them avoid taxes. Lincoln, replying to charges Douglas had not made to his face in their joint debates, explained his fee arrangement for railroad legal services and declared that railroads should not be freed from their obligation to pay money into the state treasury. Republican newspapers reported that, despite the need to answer attacks, Lincoln was in admirable spirits and voice and gave the best speech ever made in Hancock County. His audience apparently included many more women than Douglas's had, while the local Democratic newspaper blamed heavy rain before Douglas's earlier appearance for turning Carthage into mud and insisted that more real voters had attended Douglas's speech. Although none of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates took place in Hancock County, Lincoln delivered more formal speeches there during the 1858 campaign than in any other county, prompting Douglas to appear there more often than in all but one county. Lincoln spoke in Carthage one week after the seventh and final debate at Alton, as part of a late strategic decision to spend two days contesting Hancock County as the Senate race neared its close. More than five thousand people heard him, amid delegations carrying two or three hundred flags of various sizes, and Joseph Smith III later recalled that although Lincoln at first struck him poorly in appearance, he soon became much pleased with Lincoln's style and manner of speaking.