Editing Springfield, Illinois (section)

====Population====
Winkle earlier had studied the effect of migration on residents' political participation in Springfield during the 1850s.<ref name="winkle"/> Widespread migration in the 19th-century United States produced frequent population turnover within Midwestern communities, which influenced patterns of voter turnout and office-holding. Examination of the manuscript census, poll books, and office-holding records reveals the effects of migration on the behavior and voting patterns of 8,000 participants in 10 elections in Springfield. Most voters were short-term residents who participated in only one or two elections during the 1850s. Fewer than 1% of all voters participated in all 10 elections.<ref name="winkle"/>

Instead of producing political instability, however, rapid turnover enhanced the influence of the more stable residents.<ref name="winkle"/> Migration was selective by age, occupation, wealth, and birthplace. Longer-term or "persistent" voters, as he terms them, tended to be wealthier, more highly skilled, more often native-born, and socially more stable than non-persisters. Officeholders were particularly persistent and socially and economically advantaged. Persisters represented a small "core community" of economically successful, socially homogeneous, and politically active voters and officeholders who controlled local political affairs, while most residents moved in and out of the city. Members of a tightly knit and exclusive "core community", exemplified by [[Abraham Lincoln]], blunted the potentially disruptive impact of migration on local communities.<ref name="winkle">Kenneth J. Winkle, "The Voters of Lincoln's Springfield: Migration and Political Participation in an Antebellum City." ''Journal of Social History'' 1992 25(3): 595–611. {{ISSN|0022-4529}} Fulltext: [[EBSCO Information Services|Ebsco]]</ref>