A stamp act is any legislation that requires a tax to be paid on the transfer of certain documents. Those that pay the tax receive an official stamp on their documents, making them legal documents. The taxes raised under a stamp act are called stamp duty. This system of taxation was first devised in the Netherlands in 1624 after a public competition to find a new form of tax. A variety of products have been covered by stamp acts including playing cards, patent medicines, cheques, mortgages, contracts and newspapers. The items often have to be physically stamped at approved government offices following payment of the duty, although methods involving annual payment of a fixed sum or purchase of adhesive stamps are more practical and common. Stamp acts have been enforced in many countries, including Australia, People's Republic of China, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Andrew Paolo Napolitano (born June 6, 1950) is a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge. He is a political and senior judicial analyst for Fox News Channel, commenting on legal news and trials. Napolitano started on the channel in 1998.

Napolitano was born in Newark, New Jersey. He is a graduate of Princeton University (he was a founding member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton) and Notre Dame Law School. Napolitano sat on the New Jersey bench from 1987 to 1995, becoming the state's youngest then-sitting Superior Court judge. He also served as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University School of Law for 11 years. Napolitano resigned his judgeship in 1995 to pursue his writing and television career.

Prior to joining Fox as a news analyst, Napolitano was the presiding judge on the television show, Power of Attorney, in which people brought small-claims disputes to a televised courtroom. Differing from similar formats, the plaintiffs and defendants were represented "pro bono" by famous attorneys. The show ran in syndication during the 2000–2001 season.

Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.

Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 and is remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is remembered as one of the most influential exponents of Republicanism, promoters of the American Revolution and independence, especially in his defense of historic rights. With his first marriage, he became a landowner and slaveholder, and later owned thousands of acres of land in Virginia.

After the Revolution, Henry was a leader of the anti-federalists in Virginia. He opposed the United States Constitution, fearing that it endangered the rights of the States as well as the freedoms of individuals; he helped gain adoption of the Bill of Rights. By 1798 however, he supported President John Adams and the Federalists; he denounced passage of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions as he feared the social unrest and widespread executions that had followed the increasing radicalism of the French Revolution.