In 1859, as an activist of the National Party, he helped bring about the Moldo-Wallachian union of 1859, and thereafter served "Domnitor" Alexander John Cuza as government minister. He was one of the statesmen directly involved in drafting and imposing the land reforms of the 1860s, then, as Prime Minister of Romania, helped proclaim Romanian independence (1877). He is also remembered for leading the moderate, liberal conservative, wing of the National Liberal Party, which he helped establish in 1875. Mihail Kogălniceanu was married Ecaterina Jora (1827–1907), widow of Colonel Iorgu Scorţescu, and had at least eight children from her. The statesman's favorite was daughter Lucia (or Lucie). She had four children from her marriage to A. Vârnav-Liteanu, and two more from her second husband, Gheorghe Beldiman. Her final marriage, to Romanian dandy and Conservative Party man Leon Bogdan, produced two daughters. During and after this last marriage, she was involved in rallying support for the Conservatives and, later, the People's Party, as one of the few women of that time to openly engage in political battles; she was also a noted philanthropist. Of her progeny, daughter Lucia Vârnav-Liteanu married administrator Constantin Crupenschi. Through her son Alexandru Crupenschi's marriage with heiress Magdalena Sturdza, the Kogălniceanu descendants were intermarried with the Sturdza clan. Of Lucia Kogălniceanu's other daughters, Ana married an "Earl of Rome" (Count Russell-Killough), and Manuela a Ghica landowner. A Conservative Party politico and notoriously rich captain of industry, Mihail's nephew Grigore Kogălniceanu (d. 1904) married Adela Cantacuzino-Paşcanu of the Cantacuzino aristocrats. She survived him by 16 years, playing the eccentric host to Iaşi's high society, before falling victim to an unsolved burglary-homicide in 1920. Mihail and Ecaterina Kogălniceanu had three sons. The oldest, Constantin, was a historian and diplomat. The youngest was Vasile Kogălniceanu (1863–1942). He was an expert in agronomy, an advocate of agrarian politics, and a proponent of universal suffrage, who was jailed by the authorities as instigator of the 1907 Peasants' Revolt.