States in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of t.lhe Constitution of the United States. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment reads as follows: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law Which shall abridge tbe privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."
Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment reads as follows: "The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or any State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude."
By the act of April 23, 1909, p. 505, now § 3754, C. & M. Digest, primary elections in this State were made legal elections in the following language : "Whenever any political party in this State shall, by primary election, nominate any person to become a candidate at any general election, regular or special, or for U.S. Senator, or for Congress, or any legislative, judicial, State, district, county, township or municipal office, the said primary election shall be, and is hereby made, a legal election." In 1917, the people of the State initiated and adopted what is commonly referred to as the Brundidge Primary Election Law, the objects and purposes of which were to safeguard the rights of candidates, to prevent fraud in primary elections, and to confer jurisdiction on the circuit courts in the matter of contests arising at the primary elections. This act fixed a definite time for holding elections, provided for printing of ballots, selection of judges and clerk's, their duties and many other provisions and regulations set out in §§ 3757 to 3782, both inclusive, C. & M. Digest.
Nowhere is there to be found any provision in the statutes of Arkansas requiring any political party to hold
