Almost immediately after the adoption of the ordinance a mass meeting at Clarksburg recommended that each county in north-western Virginia send delegates to a convention to meet in Wheeling on the 13th of May 1861.
In 1858 Carson City was laid out, and in the following year the people of Carson county held a mass meeting and chose delegates to a constitutional convention, which met at Genoa on the 18th of July 1859, and in ten days drafted a constitution.
The immediate followers of Pretorius now became extremely incensed at the action of the Lydenburg party, and a mass meeting was held at Potchefstroom (October 1860), where it was resolved that: (a) the volksraad no longer enjoyed its confidence; (b) that Pretorius should remain president of the South African Republic, and have a year's leave of absence to bring about union with the Free State; (c) that Schoeman should act as president during the absence of Pretorius; (d) that before the return of Pretorius to resume his duties a new volksraad should be elected.
When he first read that instrument he was very much opposed to the consolidated government which it provided, but was induced to befriend it by resolutions which were passed at a mass meeting of Boston mechanics or "tradesmen" - his own firmest supporters - and by the suggestion that its ratification should be accompanied by a recommendation of amendments designed chiefly to supply the omission of a bill of rights.
He was released from prison on the ground that he was a candidate for the Reichstag, and recovered his liberty in time to arrange the mass meeting on the Theresienwiese at Munich on Nov.