Definition of "sculduggery"

Mr. BURNS wanted to hear from the gentleman from Logan on his amendment, to see whether there was any "sculduggery" about it.

1873 June 3, Barnabas Burns, J. G. Adel, official reporter, “Fourteenth Day”, in Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of the Third Constitutional Convention of Ohio, Assembled in the City of Columbus, on Tuesday, May 13, 1873, volume I, Cleveland, Oh.: W. S. Robison & Co., printers to the Convention, […], page 163, column 2

And you, O student, might do worse than to investigate the assorted sculduggeries of this obscure trio: […]

1941, Norman Cousins, editor, Saturday Review, volume 24, New York, N.Y.: Saturday Review Associates, page 6