Well,experts say the expression appears to have been first used in the United States more than one hundred years ago.

VOA: special.2010.01.17

Charles Haynes is a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, a group that studies free expression issues.

VOA: special.2009.12.24

The expression was first used in the southern part of the United States to describe the use of force to win an election.

VOA: special.2009.02.15

A writer for the magazine "American Speech" said he first saw the expression used in nineteen seventy-one.

VOA: special.2010.05.16

Those words are part of the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression and other rights.

VOA: special.2009.12.24

Language expert Charles Earle Funk said the expression was first used almost seven hundred years ago.

VOA: special.2010.01.31

The expression was first used in America at the beginning of the twentieth century.

VOA: special.2009.11.15