the men from Cape Colony and Natal considered themselves
for all practical--I do not say for all political--purposes to be
English, and English became the general spoken tongue not only of
Johannesburg, but of the mining districts generally. Hearing nothing but
English spoken, seeing nothing all round them that was not far more
English than Dutch, though English with a half-colonial, half-American
tinge, it was natural that the bulk of the Uitlanders should deem
themselves to be in a country which had become virtually English, and
should see something unreasonable or even grotesque in the control of a
small body of persons whom they deemed in every way their inferiors.
However, before I describe their sentiments and their schemes, some
account must be given of the government under which they lived.

As was explained in a previous chapter (Chapter XII) the South African
Republic was formed by the union, between 1858 and 1862, of several
small and theretofore practically independent republican communities.
Its constitution was set forth in a document called the Grondwet,[81] or
"Fundamental Law," enacted in 1858 and partly based on a prior draft of
1855. It is a very crude, and indeed rude, instrument, occasionally
obscure, and containing much matter not fit for a constitution. It
breathes, however, a thoroughly free spirit, save as regards Kafirs and
Roman Catholics, recognizing the people as a source of power, laying
down the old distinction between the three departments of
government,--legislative, executive, and judicial,--and guaranteeing
some of the primordial rights of the citizen. By it the government was
vested in a President, head of the executive, and elected for five
years, an Executive Council of five members (three elected and two _ex
officio_), and a Legislature called the Volksraad, elected by the
citizens on a very extended suffrage, and declared to be the supreme
power in the State. The Volksraad consists of one chamber, in which
there are at present twenty-four members. The President has the right of
speaking, though not of voting, in it, but has no veto on its action.
Though there are few constitutions anywhere which give such unlimited
power to the Legislature, the course of events--oft-recurring troubles
of all sorts, native wars, internal dissensions, financial pressure,
questions with the British Government--have made the President
practically more important than the Legislature, and, in fact, the