Led by a group of young intellectuals, the movement was mostly limited to petitioning and constitutional projects, unlike the successful uprising taking place later that year in neighbouring Wallachia, and it was quickly suppressed.

Rules were then outlined for electing a new, more representative assembly with increased powers, including the right to make proposals to the prince on all matters affecting the general welfare and to examine all government ordinances concerning public affairs and judicial administration before they were put into effect.

Sturdza, now bent on permanently halting all dissent, made anyone even suspected of opposition subject to arrest, imposed strict censorship, and had students returning from France stopped at the border and interrogated before being allowed to proceed.

[9][10][11] The Moldavian movement and its Wallachian counterpart alarmed Russia, which in late March had warned Sturdza and Prince Gheorghe Bibescu that armies would be sent across the Prut if changes were pondered in the Organic Statute system.

[8][10][13] Kogălniceanu also drafted a constitution, Proiectul de Constituţie, which rendered the legislature the dominant branch of government, allowing it to vote taxes, draw up the annual state budget, stimulate agriculture, industry and commerce, reform laws, elect the prince, and choose the metropolitan and bishops of the Orthodox Church.

Like most of his colleagues, he felt obliged to remain mindful of his era's social and political realities by recognizing the boyars' continued leading role and limiting the participation of peasants due to their lack of education and experience.

Remaining sympathetic to the liberal agenda, he not only allowed a number of revolutionaries to return home, but brought many of them into his administration, including Kogălniceanu, Alecsandri and Ion Ionescu de la Brad.

He introduced important administrative reforms and promoted economic development and education, but eventually lost sympathy from the revolutionary leaders for failing to change the peasantry's status or broaden middle- and lower-class participation in political life.