Andrew T. Judson

[1] While in the Connecticut House of Representatives, Judson was one of the most active members of the Toleration Party, which had for its object disunion between church and state.

[4] After a severe struggle the Tolerationists, aided by the Democrats, succeeded in setting aside the charter that was granted by Charles II of England, and adopted the new Constitution of 1818, which remained in effect until 1965.

Although he had earlier welcomed Prudence Crandall's Canterbury Female Boarding School,[5]: 15–16  his support vanished when she accepted a black student and refused pressures to expel her.

While he was only assistant prosecutor of Crandall's first trial, upon which the state's attorney for the county and the court's next choice, state Lieutenant Governor Ebenezer Stoddard, were suspiciously both "ill", since he was the only one of three prosecutors with knowledge of the case he called and questioned the witnesses, and gave the prosecution's closing argument.

At this point opposition to Crandall's school became violent: an attempt to set the building on fire, an attack at night breaking all the windows.

While this was going on, Judson explained his position to one of Crandall's supporters, the Brooklyn, Connecticut, abolitionist minister Samuel J.

...You are violating the Constitution of our Republic, which settled forever the status of the black men in this land.

[6][7] Judson did appear as a character witness on behalf of Reuben Crandall, Prudence's brother, a physician who was arrested in Washington, D.C., for (illegally) possessing abolitionist literature and was nearly lynched.

He did so because Reuben had recommended to Prudence that she abandon her plans to educate black girls in Connecticut.

[5]: 228–231 Judson was elected as a Jacksonian Democrat from Connecticut's at-large congressional district to the United States House of Representatives of the 24th United States Congress and served from March 4, 1835, until July 4, 1836, when he resigned to accept a federal judicial appointment.

During that time the abolitionist, and mentor of Prudence Crandall, William Lloyd Garrison sent him a petition from 46 residents of Brooklyn, Connecticut, urging him to end slavery in the District of Columbia.

Given his views on race and slavery, Judson surprised many observers by ruling in favor of the captured Africans and ordering that they be freed and safely returned to their homes in Africa.