The recipient of a classical education, which compensated for his middle-class background and allowed him to study at the University of Vienna, he was also deeply involved in the Wallachian Revolution of 1848 as an early adherent of "Red" liberalism.

Serving for almost twenty years in the Assembly of Deputies and Senate, Chițu criticized Westernization and championed local political models, including Oltenia's Tudor Vladimirescu.

His parallel work as a publicist and publisher resulted in noted collaborations with Constantin D. Aricescu, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, and Theodor Aman; it also contributed to his being inducted into the Romanian Academy in 1879.

Successively in the 1880s, in the newly proclaimed Kingdom of Romania, Chițu handled Finance, Justice, Internal Affairs, and again Education, earning respect for his indifference to graft and his hard stance on administrative incompetence.

He had by then been shunned by the Craiova voters, as well as by his former friend Hasdeu, and had lost prospects of returning to the legal profession, ending his career as a representative of rural constituencies in Olt County.

[56] He took no retainer for this case, noting that Madona Dudu had a mission to help the needy; his friends circulated a story according to which Chițu had refused payment for his services in obtaining reparations for a destitute widow and her son.

[58] Meanwhile, in early 1865, he and Anastase Stolojan were giving public lectures in Craiova;[59] his essays on ethnography and the Romanian lexis (specifically Latin etymology and the Christian vocabulary) appeared in Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu's review, Columna luĭ Traianŭ.

[63] During his mandate, Chițu came to espouse the most optimistic version of Romanian nationalism, which discussed the possibility of forming a "Greater Romania" by somehow joining the Principalities with Transylvania—and with other Romanian-inhabited regions of Austria-Hungary.

Unusually, it stipulated that Aricescu would have to provide a posthumous portrait of the rebel leader, Tudor Vladimirescu, to be completed by Nicolae Grigorescu—"the only one competent enough to give form to this idea", according to Chițu.

[87] In addition to consolidating the network for vocational education and sponsoring village libraries, Chițu mandated Ortansa Morțun to set up government-sponsored laboratory schools for girls, which were to be spread across Romania.

[93] In his own overview of the affair, scholar Grigore Moldovan noted: "[Petrino] was a sworn enemy of the poet, because of an unfavorable statement [Eminescu] had made about him in a Romanian newspaper in Budapest.

[102] He was less involved than his immediate predecessors in issues pertaining to archeology and museum education, primarily because he would not intervene in the conflict opposing Dimitrie Papazoglu and Cezar Bolliac, even as the former pressed him to fund a number of surveys in Oltenia.

[112] Going back on his support for Russia, Chițu stood out for his speeches against the annexation of Northern Dobruja (which he reportedly viewed as a "nightmare"),[113] received as compensation for Romania's loss of Southern Bessarabia.

Though his stance on the matter was singular within the PNL as a whole, and closer to the conservative position,[114] "White" circles were persuaded that Chițu, rather than defending the old Romanian borders, was trying to preserve Northern Dobruja for inclusion in a Greater Bulgaria.

[116] During late 1879, Chițu, Catargiu, Emil Costinescu, Dimitrie Gianni, Nicolae Fleva and Eliodor Vergati formed the parliamentary commission which put an end to the scandal by giving to go-ahead to a state monopoly on railways.

[117] He was also embracing pragmatism in his dealings with the "Whites" and Junimea: at a time of heightened political tension in early 1878, he and Vernescu tried to persuade other the PNL majority in the Assembly not to invalidate the election of a conservative, Ion Emanuel Florescu, at Romanați.

[125] He also made occasional returns as champion of the Aromanian cause, pressing Dinu Nicolache Mihail of Craiova to reverse Hellenization in Magaruva by reopening a Romanian school.

[124] He emerged as a supporter of Carol Hohenzollern, now King of Romania: appearing with the monarch at the June 1883 ceremonies in Iași, he argued that the union of Moldavians and Wallachians could not have been strong enough without the dynasty.

[128] Later that year, he oversaw the adoption of an 1864 administrative law; the changes dealt with the manner of confirming mayors in office, their power to maintain public order and the position of police chief.

[129] In early 1884, when tensions over modifying the 1866 Constitution spilled over into street protests that aimed to install Gheorghe Bibescu's son as King, Chițu helped lead a successful effort to disperse the crowd and restore order.

In a letter to Sturdza, Junimist Petre P. Carp listed Chițu, Aurelian and Nicolae Voinov as incompetent administrators, who needed to be purged for the PNL alliance to have any future.

[144] During the latter part of his career in government, Chițu had imposed a policy of paid "bathing leaves" for ministers, citing his own health issues, and his frequent stays to the mineral springs in Mehadia, as an example.

[145] Having resigned his last ministerial position for reasons of health,[146] Chițu was by then too frail to contribute to the public debate, a "powerless witness" to the incidents which caused Brătianu's toppling and the rise of a Junimist-led "United Opposition".

[147] His physical decline relates to his unrestrained alcohol consumption, which became a topic of public ridicule—one such episode played out in the Assembly, where Junimea deputy Costică Bobeică quipped about his habitual drinking of Madeira wine.

[...] Had he lived in any other society, one that would exercise a more rigorous control over him, perhaps his life would have extinguished as a star that leaves behind some traces of light, and not as a poorly made gas lamp, stinking up the room when turned off.

As reported by Lupta newspaper, in June 1887 he and his brother Petre had formed their own electoral club, in opposition to Stolojan's, but, fearing a split of the PNL vote, agreed to a reunification in September.

[157] Commenting on these developments, the opposition's Take Ionescu observed that the PNL itself was getting weaker, since Chițu had "fallen" despite benefiting from the political machine, which prevented any other candidate from even mildly criticizing him.

[163] Also that March, Gheorghe Chițu helped sway the Assembly vote in favor of granting a life annuity to Eminescu, his former rival, who had been incapacitated by a degenerative illness.

[170] Chițu was bedridden for almost another decade, but, as claimed in March 1897 by the Junimist Ion Luca Caragiale, none of the PNL leaders, "not even one, went over there to inquire about him, to see him, to support his arm [...] as he raised a jug of water to his lips.

[180] According to art scholar Barbu Brezianu, this and other five busts by the young Brâncuși were missed-out opportunities, rejected by local authorities who had a "lack of understanding" toward the sculptor's modernizing tendencies.