In 1921, John Washington Butler, a successful farmer in Tennessee, feared that the theory of evolution was influencing young people and crippling their religious beliefs. Firmly believing that the Bible was the foundation for American government and that anyone who disagreed was guilty of weakening the principles of the nation, Butler vowed to oppose the teaching of evolution in the public schools in Tennessee. He was elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1922 and was reelected in 1924. During his second term, he wrote his infamous anti-evolution act. The Butler Act, which sought to prohibit the teaching of evolutionary theory in all public schools in Tennessee, passed the Tennessee House of Representatives and the Tennessee Senate by solid majorities. On March 21, 1925, the governor of Tennessee, Austin Peay, signed the Butler Act into law.
The constitutionality of the Butler anti-evolution law was soon tested. John Scopes, a public school teacher, was arrested for teaching evolution. In Dayton, Tennessee, in July 1925, in the case Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (also known as "The Monkey Trial"), he was tried, convicted, and fined for violating the law.
