Andrew Judson
Presiding Judge
District Court Trial
Amistad Case
On January 13, 1840, Judge Judson ruled that the Mendes were
"born free" and "still of right are free and not slaves."
ANDREW JUDSON (1784-1853), son of an impoverished clergyman was born
in Ashford, Ct. Unable to afford college, he studied law at an attorney's office,
and was admitted to the bar in 1806. After a brief stint practicing law in Vermont,
he returned to Connecticut in 1809, settling in Canterbury. Elected to the General
Assembly in 1813 he took no part in the deliberations, and when given the opportunity
to speak "the idea alone gave me palpitations."
He attributed his failure to be granted a military commission during the War of 1812
to his belonging to the wrong political party (the Jeffersonian faction). He married
Rebecca Warner in 1816 and a few months later shifted his political allegiance to
the Democratic Party. As a legislator, he worked to ratify the state constitution,
noting that previously the absence of a constitution had operated "to the prejudice
of the rights of citizens." Named State Attorney for Windham County in 1819
he remained in the post until 1834. At various times from 1822 to 1835 he served
in the state Senate and House of Representatives. When he chaired the Senate rules
committee he gave full play to his love of order and precedence.
In the spring of 1835 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives but resigned
on July 4, 1836 to fill a judgeship vacancy in the Sixth District of Connecticut.
Strangely enough, Judson's unpublished memoir (MS in the Mystic Seaport Library)
omits any reference to his closing down of Prudence Crandall's school for young black
and white women in 1835 on the grounds that it would promote "amalgamation of
the races" (town of Canterbury resolution). Following the Amistad trial
in 1840, he continued to serve as judge until his death in 1853.
Judson was a complex individual who rigorously stated in his Amistad decision
"that the jurisdiction is wholly regulated by statute" yet who also strongly
resisted social change, as in the shutting down of Crandall's school. He claimed
to dislike slavery but believed that slaves were property, a belief shared with many
of his contemporaries, both North and South.
His ruling in favor of the Africans was based on Ruiz and Montes' failure to produce
a title to their "property" and to their disregard of international law
banning the importation of slaves into Cuba. In avoiding any reference to the immorality
of slavery his decision may be interpreted as symptomatic of the contradictory, unresolved
views of countless Northerners in the late 1830's. Nevertheless in affirming that
the Mendes "were born free" he spoke more persuasively than perhaps he
realized in implicitly recognizing that they did indeed have human rights. Had Judson
decided against the Africans, the case might well have passed unnoticed into antebellum
history.
Calvin Lane
Further Reading:
Howard Jones. Mutiny on the Amistad. New York: Oxford Press, Rev. edition 1997.
Janice Trecker. Preachers, Rebels, and Traders. Chester: Pequot Press., 1975.
