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The Scopes Trial
On May 4, 1925, less than two months after the Butler Law was enacted, the Chattanooga Daily News ran a press release which stated that the ACLU was “looking for a Tennessee teacher who is willing to accept our services in testing this law [the Butler Act].”[1] When notable members of Dayton saw the ACLU’s press release, they began to make a plan to put their town on the map, and they used John Scopes to do it. Scopes was a young teacher, and when asked by such prominent members of the Dayton community as George Rappelyea, Walter White, Clay Green, and Doc Robinson to teach evolution in his classroom and take the ACLU up on its offer, he did not hesitate.
By the middle of June news of the impending trial of John T. Scopes had swept the nation and had captured the attention of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. Bryan willingly accepted the prosecutions offer to take an active part in the trial and quickly became the prosecutions figure head. He believed that this would be the perfect opportunity to once and for all prove the legal right of the state to enact legislation backed by the majority that governed the way in which public funds were used, namely what was taught in the public school system. The ACLU on the other hand, planned to argue that the Butler Law violated the Tennessee Constitution’s establishment clause, which was modeled after the First Amendment, and which called for the separation of church and state.[2] When famed defense lawyer Clarence Darrow heard about the case he immediately offered his services to Scopes, who accepted despite objections of the ACLU. The stage for the trial of the century had been set, and the actors were in place, all that was left was to see how things would play out.
[1] Steven P.Olson, The Trial of John T. Scopes: A Primary Source Account (New York, NY: Rosen Publishing Group, 2004), 10.
[2] Jeffrey Moran,. The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents (New York, NY: St. Martins, 2002), 34.
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