In mid-nineteenth-century America, railroads provided a fairly comfortable and timely form of travel. When Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas selected the seven sites for their famous series of debates, they obviously did so with railroad access in mind. Initially, both senatorial candidates wanted to hold nine debates, one in each of the state’s congressional districts. However, both men had already spoken in Springfield and Chicago within a day of each other and therefore decided to limit their joint appearances to the remaining seven districts.