his colleagues C.J. Vels, O.J. Truter, and J.G. Fraser Reitz published the first Ordonnantie boek van den Oranje Vrijstaat (Ordinance Book of the Orange Free State) in 1877, making the acts and ordinances of the republic available to the larger public. He also played a role in the revision of the constitution of the Orange Free State, with regard to articles on citizenship and the right to vote, was chairman of the examination committee for aspirant practitioners, and contributed to the improvement of the prison system and the district administration. State President of Orange Free State Already in 1878, voices sounded for Reitz to run for the presidency, but President Brand's position was still very strong and Reitz openly praised his qualities and refused to stand against him. In the late 1870s and early 1880s the political temperature ran high in the Orange Free State. The annexation of the South African Republic (Transvaal) by the British in 1877 and the First Anglo-Boer War of 1880–1881 in which that republic regained its autonomy impacted deeply on political sentiments in the Orange Free State. On the one hand there were those who propagated caution in the relationship with the British, on the other there developed a political movement that strongly propagated a (reawakened) Afrikaner national consciousness. Reitz was part of the latter, and together with C.L.F. Borckenhagen, editor of the Bloemfontein Express newspaper, he wrote a constitution for the Afrikaner Bond (Afrikaner Union), a political party originally set up by leading Afrikaner politicians in the Cape Colony, like Rev S.J. du Toit and his Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners ('Society of True Afrikaners') and Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr and the Zuidafrikaansche Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging ('South African Boer Protection Association'). Among the supporters of this new Afrikaner nationalism in the Orange Free State was also Reitz's successor, M.T. Steyn, then still a young lawyer. The constitution was presented in April 1881, and several months later Reitz became the chairman of the Bond. His overt political activities earned Reitz criticism from those who feared a breakdown of relations with the British. It is obvious, however, that a wind of change was blowing through the Boer republics and among the Afrikaners in the Cape Colony, which was to change Anglo-Boer relations drastically. In the Orange Free State President Brand was one of the politicians who held on to a more cautious and consolidating policy towards the British