| Summary: | The requirement that judges restrain their personal feelings and prevent outside factors from influencing their judicial decisions can be traced back to English common law. This practice is known as judicial restraint, and the abandonment of this essential principle is at the heart of a controversial case known as The Dred Scott Decision. The Dred Scott Decision involved slavery and states' rights, two subjects that elicited strong opinions from almost all Americans -- subjects that even U.S. justices seemed unable to confront with professional open-mindedness and judicial restraint. Ultimately, the course of this case testified to the breakdown of compromise between North and South, a breakdown that led the country to civil war.
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