He left behind a budding career as Junimea's polemicist and cultural journalist, joining the state bureaucracy of the United Principalities, the Romanian diplomatic corps, and ultimately electoral politics.

On behalf of the student fraternities, Carp welcomed Jérôme, cousin of French Emperor Napoleon III, and was remarked by the visitor for his "clear" and intellectually honest political stance.

[3][16][17][18][19] He kept a vivid interest in such work over the next years, translating Othello (printed under Junimea patronage in 1868), articles from the British cultural press, and the scientific travelogues of Alexander von Humboldt.

[3][5] The interval corresponded with the emergence of major political currents, formed around the two halves of a pro-Cuza "National Party": the "Red" camp, as an early manifestation of Romanian liberalism; the "Whites", as mainly proponents of traditional conservatism.

[25][26] More attracted to the "White" half of the spectrum, Carp became especially active in the national journals (Cugetarea, Revista Dunării), mainly as a critic of Romania's "Red" liberalism and of some emergent left-wing tendencies.

Carp's 1865 piece, published in the local paper Cugetarea under the pen name P. Bătăușul ("P. the Bully"), attacked Hasdeu's biography of the medieval despot Ion Vodă cel Cumplit, and specifically its advocacy of absolute monarchy and populism.

[3][5] When the list of candidates was narrowed down to Carol (Karl) of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Premier Ion Ghica sent Carp on his first diplomatic assignment, a secret mission to Napoleon III—Carp was to inquire about possible French objections to the enthronement of this Prussian prince, and recorded the Emperor's mild approval.

[3][5][20] Ghica and Carp, who were trying to contain a wave of separatist and anti-Prussian movements at home,[20] registered a moral victory (made possible by the assistance of socialite Hortense Cornu, a personal friend of Napoleon's).

[33] Its content made it a tribune for a distinct group of conservatives: the so-called Juna Dreaptă ("Young Right") society, headed by Manolache Costache Epureanu,[25] and later associated in the public mind with Carp himself.

This step signaled Romania's unilateral emancipation from the Ottoman Empire, her nominal overlord, but was received with alarm by leftists such as Hasdeu—while Térra called it "grand" news, Hasdeu's pamphlet regarded the leu as the newest symbol of Carlist usurpation.

[40] Carp still made occasional contributions to the Junimist literary press and, the same year, published a review of Gheorghe Sion's collection of fables in Maiorescu's Convorbiri Literare,[20][41] but the various assignments absorbed Junimea men into state affairs.

[3] During the Peace Congress of Berlin, Carp was especially alarmed by the territorial exchanges: Romania lost the Budjak region to Russia and, in addition to international recognition, received Northern Dobruja (formerly in the Ottoman Danube Vilayet).

[20][25][56] This perspective on foreign politics reunited Carp with King Carol and Ion Brătianu, who secretly convened that, after the taking of the Budjak, Romania needed to find herself in an anti-Russian defensive alliance.

[81][82] The general public began to suspect that the PNL leader was backing the unpopular alliance with Germany, and Bismarck himself expressed concern that a neutralist policy would overturn Carp's program.

[132] The cabinet, which had Filipescu as Minister of War, still made overtures toward Ionescu (including the promise to uphold social insurance for industrial workers or tax cuts for the rural poor).

[133] Although such measures were not effected, the new administration was successful in tackling other issues: both deficit and the cost of living dropped while the bank reserves trebled, and some palliatives were introduced in lieu of a land reform (the promised tax cuts, plus the freeing of mainmorte property).

[136] Accused of having sacked non-Conservatives from national administration and of censoring the opposition, the Premier liberalized the trade in alcohol, overturned the blue law (thus ingratiating himself with the tavern-keeping lobby), and allowed soldiers to vote and run in elections.

[137] Carp also sought some bipartisan solutions, but had to deal with accusations of incompetence: the promotion of General Alexandru Averescu, a suspected embezzler, and the mishandling of public works (scrutinized by Nicolae Fleva) turned into prolonged scandals.

By March 1912, when he passed a new law on Northern Dobruja, Carp had adopted the colonial views of his contemporaries: all ethnic Romanian immigrants to the province, including the new arrivals from Transylvania, were raised to the same level of citizenship as the local Muslims.

At election time, Marghiloman revealed that the PNL had patronized a corruption network which misused the Bucharest Town Hall budget, meaning that various National Liberal figures risked being arrested.

Between March 1915 and August 1916, with private German funding,[161] Carp put out the political newspaper Moldova, which popularized his take on the war, and, as historian Ion Bulei writes, "was entirely against the nation's current.

[183] The exercise of powers by the new apparatus varied greatly: Kostaki, appointed Verweser (temporary administrator) at the Interior Ministry, could only advise on some policy matters, while Al. C. Hinna had a free say in organizing the Justice department.

[201] His political line was expressed by means of a new gazette, Renașterea ("The Renaissance"), published by Nenițescu with assistance from Kostaki, Radu Rosetti, Alexandru Al. Beldiman and Ion Gorun.

[95] An essential contribution of his was creating a political avatar of a Junimist cultural metaphor, that of "forms without content"—namely, the belief that Romanian society had swallowed up modern ideas without adapting them to its backward realities.

[3][20][226] His attempt to regulate the alcohol industry was related to that discourse: Carp stated that peasants "should be protected from their own vices",[227] and once told an irate Eminescu that, in addition to being "lazy", the Romanians were "drunks".

[232] Additionally, the Romanian aristocrat opposed on principle the idea that the state should become involved in redistribution, arguing that the landless would in time purchase, and "slowly" learn to make the best of, their own parcels.

[234] His belief in labor as an instrument of self-help was taken up in his own private life: at age 70, Carp could be seen planting walnut trees[20] or packing butter,[101] although, to the left-wing journalist Constantin Bacalbașa, he still appeared a generally listless character.

[228][229][254] During its brief existence, Térra attacked "Red" politics as duplicitous, noting that the liberals arbitrarily expelled Jews from Romania and excused pogroms, but that they feigned innocence whenever European observers were brought in.

A conjectural supporter, Alexandru Al. Beldiman, summarized its immediate goals: "we must reform the very foundation of internal administration, primary schooling, agrarian relations and the peasant issue; we must again generate the conditions for a well-governed state.

[16] Carp's other references, upheld in front of other authors, include Jean de La Fontaine in poetry, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in drama, and Arthur Schopenhauer in general aesthetics—his expectation that these models would interest his contemporaries were, according to cultural historian Z. Ornea, unrealistic.