The Scopes Trial essays

The Scopes Trial essays The Scopes Trial was a constitutional trial in the courts. The major issue was that Mr. Scopes believed he should be able to teach evolution in schools even though there were laws passed against it. Fundamentalists did not believe this because they had Christian beliefs that said evolution was wrong. This controversy started the famous Scopes Trial. Mr. John T. Scopes was the man that started this whole trial. Mr. Scopes was a science teacher that taught in Tennessee. He thought the laws of evolution were unconstitutional and decided to test the laws in court. One may think of this a little awkward but he asked a friend to file suit against him for teaching evolution. This started the original Scopes Trial. One of the greatest lawyers in the country, William Jennings Bryan, volunteered to prosecute Mr. Scopes. Mr. Bryan was a devoted fundamentalist and a former candidate for the president of the United States. Bryan was an expert on the Bible and believed in it strongly. This expertise that Bryan had of the Bible helped him tremendously against the one and only Clarence Darrow. Mr. Clarence Darrow, also on of the best lawyers in the country, was Scopes defense. Darrow believed in Scopes view also, therefore, he volunteered for the job. He was famous for his past defensive trials for political and labor activists such as Eugene v. Debs. Fundamentalism is basically the belief that the Bible is literally true. Fundamentalists believed that the Bible was God inspired and was exactly right. The believed it was not controversial and that it contained no errors. They believed that the Bible was perfect and that every story written in it had taken place in the past already. Fundamentalism became very popular in the 1920s. When fundamentalists heard of evolution they did everything that they could to ban it forever. They worked very hard to pass laws to prevent it from being tau ...