the 1958 general election, plus the United Party-held seat of Sunnyside in Pretoria), while a majority voted against in the other 52 (all held by the United Party). Aftermath White reaction Whites in the former Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State voted decisively in favour, as did those in South West Africa. On the eve of the establishment of the republic, Die Transvaler proclaimed: Our republic is the inevitable fulfilment of God's plan for our people... a plan formed in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape... for which the defeat of our republics in 1902 was a necessary step. In the Cape Province there was a smaller majority, despite the removal of the Cape Coloured franchise, while Natal voted overwhelmingly against; in the constituencies of Durban North, Pinetown and Durban Musgrave, the vote against a republic was 89.7, 83.7 and 92.7 per cent respectively. Following the referendum result, Douglas Mitchell, the leader of the United Party in Natal, declared: We in Natal will have no part or parcel of this Republic. We must resist, resist, and resist it - and the Nationalist Government. I have contracted Natal out of a republic on the strongest possible moral grounds that I can enunciate. Mitchell led a delegation from Natal seeking greater autonomy for the province, but without success. Other whites in Natal went as far as to call for secession from the Union, along with some parts of the eastern Cape Province. However, Mitchell rejected the idea of independence as "suicide", although he did not rule out asking for it in the future. In a conciliatory gesture to English-speaking whites, and a recognition that some had supported him in the referendum, Verwoerd appointed two English-speaking members to his cabinet. Black reaction On 25 March 1961, in response to the referendum, the ANC held an All-In African Congress in Pietermaritzburg attended by 1398 delegates from all over the country. It passed a resolution declaring that "no Constitution or form of Government decided without the participation of the African people who form an absolute majority of the population can enjoy moral validity or merit support either within South Africa or beyond its borders". It called for a National Convention, and the organising of mass demonstrations on the eve of what Nelson Mandela described as "the unwanted republic", if the government failed to call one. He wrote: The adoption