Definition of "skullduggery"

And I have another reason which I will express to my St Paul friends, and that is, that they have always been controlled in their political action here by a class of men who have always some traps set for the country members—by men who are always up to this border ruffian kind of trickery—this kind of skullduggery, as it is called in Minnesota. And now St. Paul allows herself to be controlled by these same border ruffian politicians.

1857 July 27, St. A. D. Balcombe, President of the Convention, T. F. Andrews (official reporter), “Thirteenth Day”, in Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention for the Territory of Minnesota, to Form a State Constitution Preparatory to Its Admission into the Union as a State (Records of the States of the United States), Saint Paul, Minn.: George W. Moore, printer […], published 1858, page 126, column 1

The crew manager collects all the money from his workers. They operate in more or less close formation, with the manager lurking around the edges, riding herd in his car or walking between cover points. Thus, the solicitor has little chance for skullduggery. His receipts are numbered and he has to account for them.

1937 June, R. B. Sullivan, “Education via the Two-pay”, in Arnold Gingrich, editor, Esquire: The Magazine for Men, volume VII, number 6 (number 43 overall), Chicago, Ill.: Esquire, Inc., page 237, column 2

Government members are now talking about skullduggery. Whose skullduggery are they referring to? If there is any skullduggery it will be because many eligible people are denied the opportunity to cast a valid vote, and that is all the more reason for the House to pass the Electoral Law Amendment Bill today. I do not want any skullduggery in elections at any time, […]

1980 June 6, Arthur James Faulkner, “Adjournment—Northern Maori Electoral Roll”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): Second Session, Thirty-ninth Parliament (House of Representatives), volume 429, Wellington: P. D. Hasselberg, government printer, page 566

What exhibition of rapaciousness, race prejudice and political spoliation could be cheaper, commoner, or meaner? These are the little tyrannies and petty skullduggeries that make bitter the relations between the races.

2002, J. Douglas Smith, quoting the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, “Little Tyrannies and Petty Skullduggeries”, in Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia, Chapel Hill, N.C., London: University of North Carolina Press, page 137