scopes trial definition us history

scopes trial definition us history

The Scopes Trial: A Landmark Case in U.S. History

1. Introduction to the Scopes Trial

Once a backwater, the town of Dayton, Tennessee was put on the map when a promoter, G.W. Rappleyea, asked local leaders to pass a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the public school in order to create publicity for both the town and Rappleyea’s planned trial of a schoolteacher who would be arrested for breaking the new law. John Scopes, a local substitute teacher and football coach, graciously agreed to stand trial on Rappleyea’s behalf although young Scopes was not guilty of the alleged violation. The stage was then set for a trial of national scope featuring two formidable lawyers who became household names at the time and for decades to come. If Darrow and Bryan could not save Scopes, they could possibly win a change to Tennessee law and capitalize on the western publicity.

The Scopes Trial, also known as the Monkey Trial, is a legal and educational milestone in modern American history. The 1925 prosecution of Dayton, Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes for violating Tennessee’s law against teaching evolution in the classroom has since been the subject of numerous books, films, and stage plays. Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan were the leading lawyers in this case. The only significant court decision delivered in connection with this drama was that John Scopes’s conviction was overturned on a technicality.

2. Key Players and Background Information

Contending with the real possibility of being the first teacher in any school in Tennessee to be tried for teaching evolution, Scopes’ case was felt to be of such importance that two groups immediately offered financial assistance to the embattled teacher. One group was called the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the other was the American Defense League. Scopes, himself, was a young man of 25 years, fresh out of university, when he was approached by the school board to ask whether it would be a terrible thing if he were almost “railroaded” into taking a stand in what was perceived to be a big test case. Scopes wrote his father for advice about the situation and after careful thought, he decided to make the supreme sacrifice.

The stage for the Scopes Trial was set by a precedent. Every state had laws against teaching or advocating in any way the theory of evolution. However, in 1925, the opposition to this anti-evolution movement was to go beyond the courtroom because the Anti-Evolution Act had been passed by the Tennessee legislature. This particular piece of legislation denoted it unlawful for any teacher in any public school in Tennessee to teach any theory other than the Biblical account of the divine creation of man.

3. The Trial Proceedings and Legal Arguments

The defense was conducted by the best trial lawyers that the American Civil Liberties Union could command. The defendant was convicted after the court had refused peremptorily to set aside the indictment even though for four days the defense had been making such a request, addressed actually to public opinion. The trial was concluded on the fifth day, at the end of the defense’s presentation of scientific evidence, taken largely from the proceedings of the British Society for the Advancement of Science, of the gradual acceptance among scientists of the concept of evolution during the last eighteen centuries, of the contributions of Charles Darwin, and of the general concept of advancement inherent in evolution and also found in religion itself. The appellate court reversed by a vote of three to one, two of the majority being in about one half of the findings of error, while the third approved the admission of certain evidence of the British Association even though published after the passage of the Act.

The Scopes Trial, pitting anti-evolutionist fundamentalists against those who would teach evolution in schools, was one of the most famous legal struggles in American history. John Scopes was indicted for violating a Tennessee law that forbade the teaching in public schools of any theory that denied “the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.” The Butler Act, enacted March 21, 1925, provided: “That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part of the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Scopes, a teacher at Dayton, Tennessee, had his own motives in being the defendant. Neither the defendant nor the prosecutor expected anything more than a show trial, and this both of them got, but out of it came one of the great folklore myths of American history, the trial being embroidered into a “moral struggle,” a “clash of science and religion” of good and evil purpose, of narrow-mindedness and broad-mindedness.

4. Impact and Legacy of the Scopes Trial

In the process of obtaining expert witnesses, the ACLU quickly reached a number of noted scientists. Then it turned to a number of publicists, including some well-known professional authors and lecture bureau speakers. In attracting an audience, the national press was of major consequence in publicizing what was promised to be a symbolic conflict between the forces of enlightenment and obscurantism. The national radio networks not only allowed for live broadcasts back to the nation and the world each day of the trial but also amplified the reporting of the extensive press. For weeks prior to the start of the trial, places of lodging in Dayton (population 1,800) and in neighboring towns that were instructing in favor of the defense had been booked solidly for reporters who had come from throughout the United States and from many foreign countries. Even before the trial began, including the alleged offenses described, the elite group that came to town and its supporters harmoniously agreed that the men of Dayton were mere yapping mountebanks who could be easily turned into ridiculed clowns. And all agreed that the men on their side of the issue were men of true stature.

The Scopes trial placed the teaching of evolution on trial before the nation. A case of such humiliating discomfort for the entrenched forces of provincialism could not help but leave an indelible mark – the mark of ridicule. Very soon after the trial, the mainstream Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, and nonsectarian worlds joined in condemning the law as incompatible with liberal principles of education. Popular support that had been detected for teaching evolution in Tennessee disintegrated. Over the years, in a number of decisive legal battles, the laws forbidding the teaching of evolution initially passed in fifteen states were weakened and finally nullified. They became a symbol of crude obscurantism that historians date from the Scopes trial. The trial’s educational significance was that it drew sharp focus to the issues that seemed to be involved in the teaching of evolution. If John Scopes had not been on trial for violation of the law, we may well wonder how far and how soon the number of communities forbidding the teaching of the subject would have extended throughout the land.