Politically, mutual assistance in getting bills through the Legislature, especially for local objects.
1821. We shall see how the “log-rollers” will unite their strength.—Penna. Intelligencer, Harrisburg, Jan. 16.
1823. The removel of the county seat from frankling, and the Log rolin in the assembly to git it don.—Missouri Intelligencer, Feb. 11.
1823. That sort of “management,” now rather more fashionable, and known by the dignified appellation of “log-rolling”—that is, a buying and selling of votes. “If you’ll support me in this, I’ll support you in that.”—Niles’ Weekly Register, xxiv. June 7, p. 210/1. (N.E.D.)
1823. Log-rolling is a disgraceful system by which legislators effect their favorite objects. One member agrees to support a measure which he deems injurious, in order to induce others to support measures for which he is anxious.—Missouri Intelligencer, Sept. 9.
1824. Men who “buy and sell doves in the temple,” and “roll logs” out-of-doors.—Woodstock (Vt.) Observer, March 16: from Niles’ Weekly Register, xxv. Feb. 28, p. 404/1. (Italics in the original.)
1828. John Q. Adams came into office … by the operation of a corrupt “log-rolling’” arrangement.—Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 3, p. 4/2.
1831. If you can get back to your free-trade notions of 1824, and to the old Federal doctrine in relation to the judiciary, and to some point on the subject of internal improvement where the funds of the nation may be used safely for that purpose, without encouraging the system of ‘log-rolling,’ so dangerous to all honest legislation, your chance is good.—Commodore R. F. Stockton to Daniel Webster, Aug. 19: Curtis, ‘Life,’ i. 401 (1870).
1835. My people don’t like me to log-roll in their business.—‘Col. Crockett’s Tour,’ p. 120 (Phila.).
1844. [The bill] owes its success to what is familiarly known in our State as “log-rolling,” by which each item of appropriation is made to support the rest, and thereby all made to stand, when no one of them could stand by itself upon its own merits.—Mr. Bayly of Virginia, House of Repr., June: Cong. Globe, p. 651, App.
1846. These gentlemen were exceedingly kind and accommodating to the West. But why? They wanted western votes for Texas. They wanted their logs rolled.—Mr. Stewart of Pa., the same, March 14: id., p. 498, App.
1850. The practice of tacking bills together] is condemned by public sentiment in our country, and stigmatized by the odious epithet of “log-rolling.”—Mr. C. C. Clay of Alabama, U.S. Senate, April 22: id., p. 795.
1869. For nearly thirty years after the invention of log-rolling over Mr. Jefferson’s wine,… the log-rolling lobby generally exerted their powers upon objects which possessed a public character.—James Parton, ‘Log-Rolling at Washington,’ Atlantic Monthly, xxiv. p. 365/2 (Sept.).
