Scopes Trial
In March 1925, Tennessee passed the nations first law that made it a crime to teach evolution. The state legislature passed a law forbidding public schools to teach the theory that humans had evolved from lower forms of life rather than from Adam and Eve. Immediately the American Civil Liberties Union promised to defend any teacher who challenged the law. John T. Scopes a biology teacher in Dayton, was arrested for violating the law; he had volunteered to serve in a test case. In his biology class, Scopes read this passage from Civic Biology, "We have now learned that animal forms may be arranged so as to begin with one- celled form and culminate with a group which includes man himself. Scope's trial was set for July. Scope's trial that summer became a headline event.
The American Civil Liberties Union hired Clarence Darrow, the most famous trial lawyer of the day, to defend Scopes. William Jennings Bryan, the former secretary of state and three-time presidential candidate, argued for prosecution. The Scope's trail was a fight over evolution and the role of science and religion in public schools in American society. News correspondents crowded into town, and radio stations broadcast the trial. Almost overnight, the trail became a national sensation.
The trial's climax occurred when Bryan took the witness stand as an expert on religion and science. This was the contest that everyone had been waiting for. To handle the throngs of Bryan supporters, Judge Raulston moved the court outside to a platform built under the maple trees. There, before 2,000, Darrow relentlessly questioned Bryan about his beliefs. Bryan admitted that the Bible might be interpreted in different ways. But in spite of this admission, Scope was found guilty and fined $100. Although Scope's was convicted, modernists claimed victory. The testimony, they believed, had shown fundamentalism to be illogical. The Supreme Court later changed the verdict on a technicality, but the law outlawing the teaching of evolution stayed on books after the trial.
The Scopes Trial had a great impact on the lives of the people in the 1920's. One great impact it had was that it was educating people on evolution. The people in the 1920's minds were opening up to a new theory that just didn't deal with the religious aspect of it.
Bertram Cates - the defendant, who is a teacher. He taught his students about Charles Darwin's Origins of the Species in spite of the fact that it was against the laws of his state.
Early in his career, Drummond defended two teenage child murderers and helped them escape their consequences. Due to this act, he entered Dayton surrounded by strong feelings of hatred. After his scientists were refused a spot on the stand, Drummond was enraged. Henry decided to put Matthew Harrison Brady on the stand to question him. “I call to the stand one of the world’s foremost experts on the Bible and its teachings – Matthew Harrison Brady” he insisted (Lawrence and Lee 82). After Cate’s verdict was announced, Drummond appealed it, causing it to be sent to a higher court. All these actions resemble the same activities of Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Trial. Clarence Darrow was frowned upon because of his success while taking on the teenage murderer’s situation. When he put William Jennings Bryan on stand, the crowd was shocked by his unorthodox action, but he knew exactly what he was doing. “On the seventh day of the trial, on a platform outside the Dayton, Tennessee courthouse, he called William Jennings Bryan to the stand as an expert on the Bible” (“People & Events” 1). His plan worked, allowing him to reduce the sentence to a reasonable consequence, but he was still unhappy about the verdict. He requested that the case be taken to a higher court in hopes of reversing the outcome. All in all, Henry’s actions are a near mirror image of Clarence’s.
The stage was set in Dayton, Tennessee. The leading actor in this show was a twenty five-year-old science teacher named John T. Scopes. Scopes was under the direction of advancing America. The playbill read The Scopes “Monkey” Trial. In 1925 John T. Scopes was encouraged to challenge the Butler Law. This law had been passed by a small town in Dayton, Tennessee to prohibit teaching contra to those in the Bible. Teaching from an evolutionary text, Scopes broke the law and gained the attention of the National media. The concentration of the media on the Scopes Trial effectively presented the contrasting ideas of a religious town and an evolving country.
Stanley Kramer's film, Inherit the Wind, examines a trial based on the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Often referred to as "The Trial of the Century" (Scopes Trial Web Page), the Scopes trial illuminated the controversy between the Christian theory of creation and the more scientific theory of evolution. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was arrested for illegally teaching evolutionism to his class. "The meaning of the trial emerged because it was seen as a conflict of social and intellectual values" (Scopes Trial Web Page). Kramer's film dramatizes this conflict between the Christian believers and the evolutionists in "Hillsboro, heavenly Hillsboro, the buckle on the Bible belt" (Inherit the Wind). Prosecutor Matthew Brady represents the values of fundamental Christianity while defense attorney Henry Drummond is the voice of reason and science. Although the two men have been good friends and partners in the past, the case in Hillsboro illuminates the difference in their values. Through the scene on the porch with Matthew Brady and Henry Drummond, director Stanley Kramer illustrates the incessant tug-of-war between religion and science. More specifically, camera angle and Drummond's metaphor of the "Golden Dancer" help deliver Kramer's belief in evolutionism.
Born into a wealthy family, Lizzie Borden was able to hire a formidable defense team consisting of the former governor of Massachusetts George Robinson and Andrew Jennings for an astounding twenty five thousand dollars, roughly six hundred fifty thousand dollars today. The influence of George Robinson who was very well respected throughout Massachusetts may have played a significant role in the acquittal of Lizzie but if definitely couldn’t have hindered her defense. The experience of seasoned attorney Robinson coupled with the inexperience of District Attorney William Moody and the shortcomings of the Fall River Police Department set the stage for an awe inspiring sequence of events leading to the acquittal of Lizzie Borden.
In cases having to do with constitutionality, the issue of the separation of church and state arises with marked frequency. This battle, which has raged since the nation?s founding, touches the very heart of the United States public, and pits two of the country's most important influences of public opinion against one another. Although some material containing religious content has found its way into many of the nation's public schools, its inclusion stems from its contextual and historical importance, which is heavily supported by material evidence and documentation. It often results from a teacher?s own decision, rather than from a decision handed down from above by a higher power. The proposal of the Dover Area School District to include instruction of intelligent design in biology classes violates the United States Constitution by promoting an excessive religious presence in public schools.
John Scopes, a substitute biology teacher was arrested and charged with violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee law which prohibited teachers from teaching the Darwin Theory of Evolution in a science-related course. The American Civil Liberties Union created a plan to find a teacher willing to teach evolution in order to test the Butler Act, which forbade the essence that anyone teaching any theory that shunned the Biblical story of creationism. Scopes agreed to be arrested and have the case be taken to court. However, Scopes had simply reviewed the textbook chapter on evolution. The traditionalists would see this as a threat to their interests and the issue hit the country stronger than a tornado. Everyone was glued to their radios—it was the first broadcasted radio trial--except the campers and hundreds of reporters near the Dayton, Tennessee courthouse. Traditionalists would be outraged by the appearance of speakeasies, flappers, illegal boozing, popular activities of the Roaring Twenties and especially the Darwinian Theory. Their strong Christian beliefs from the Holy Bible stated how God created the world and man and woman. A traditionalist’s beliefs would not accept the idea of evolution because the Bible said that Man did not evolve but was created by God—the Divine Creation in one day.
... times and the changing of social norms. Clarence Darrow and those on the defense were fighting for more freedom. The believed that the Butler Laws were imposing religious matters on them when they did not want it. They wanted to be able to have science and religion work together in a way that one does not out rule the other; that they are coequal and cover different questions. No matter which way you spin the results from this trial, the only true winners were the monkeys.
Gordon, Ann D. “The Trial of Susan B. Anthony”. Federal Judicial Center, Federal Judicial History Office, 2005.
It was irrational for these students to be suspended from the school. The high school students named John F. Tinker, who was fifteen-years-old, John’s younger sister Mary Beth Tinker, who was thirteen-years-old, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, who was sixteen years old, should not have been suspended. They were under the protection of the First Amendment. The parents of those students sued the school district for violating the students’ right of expressions and sought an injunction to prevent the school from decupling the students. The Supreme Court of the United Sates stepped in and the question of law was if. They ruled in the favor of the Tinker’s because it was in a seven to two decision "Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District."
The history of the Scopes trial begins in Tennessee with the Butler Act, which passed on March 13, 1925. The Butler Act stated that “it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other pub...
Even though in Inherit the Wind, Bert Cates appears as an everyday American who takes a stand for his views, in reality John Scopes was a substitute teacher who didn't even know if he had taught evolution but was convinced to testify that he had. He even wanted students to testify against
In 1925, a teacher named John T Scopes was arrested for teaching the Theory of Evolution as this contradicted religion and their beliefs that God created the world.
Another influence contributing to the demise of the great books was the demoralization of the Christian intellectual community. Most of the institutions of learning in this country were founded by Christians who saw it as their duty to conquer the intellectual arena for Christ. However, since the rise of secularism and especially since the humiliating defeat that biblical Christians saw at the Scope's Trial, the evangelical community has been in full retreat from the intellectual arena. Before the turn of the century, most institutions of learning were dominated by those who thought from a biblical worldview; however, this consensus quickly began to crumble and in 1925 at the Scope's Trial, through the public humiliation of William Jennings Bryan's creationism, academia as well as the general culture came to hold biblical Christianity as unworthy of intellectual regard. Even though the trial was in no way a rigorous debate of the creation issue, its effect on the Christian intellectual community was nothing short of disastrous. From that point on Christians felt as though the intellectual community had humiliated them and, to return the favor, they abandoned the intellectual community in droves.
The question of an individual’s beliefs quickly turned into a question of freedom. Not only is not allowing evolution to be taught in school an act of willingly keeping people ignorant, it also allowed a select few to be in control of an entire nation’s thoughts. When there are a small number of people who control the media or what is said about certain subjects—then they are able to use their power to manipulate their judgment, just as Brady stated in Inherit the Wind. “I've seen what you can do to a jury. Twist and tangle them. Nobody's forgotten the Endicott Publishing case—where you made the jury believe the obscenity was in their own minds, not on the printed page. It was immoral what you did to that jury. Tricking