Alexandru Ioan Cuza was the first ruler of the United Principalities and the Romanian State. He actively participated in the revolutionary movement in 1848 in Moldova and in the struggle for the unity of the Principalities.
On 5th January, 1859 Cuza was elected president of Moldavia, and on 24thJanuary, 1859 in Wallachia and so the union of the two principalities was made. Becoming a ruler, Cuza conducted a sustained political and diplomatic activity in order to recognize the union of Moldavia and Wallachia by the Suzerian Power and the Guaranteed Powers.
To complete the union of the Romanian Principalities on the road to the accomplishment of the constitutional and administrative unity which was achieved in January 1862, Wallachia formed a unitary state, officially adopting the name of Romania in 1862 and forming the modern Romanian state, with its capital in Bucharest, with a single assembly and a single government.
Cuza was forced to abdicate in 1866 by a large coalition of parties of the times, also called the Monstrous Coalition, because of the different political orientations of its members, who thus reacted to the ruler's authoritarian manifestations.
Cuza Voda's reign was characterized by an impatient desire to reach the West, but the efforts of his lord and his supporters come under the resistance of conservative forces and collective inertia.
After the union, Alexandru Ioan Cuza and his closest collaborator, Mihail Kogalniceanu initiated important internal reforms, the secularization of the monastic fortunes (1863), the agrarian reform (1864), the reform of education (1864) ), the reform of the judiciary (1864), which setted up a modern framework for the country's development.
Facing resistance from the government and the Legitimate Assembly in carrying out reforms, Cuza formed, in 1863, a government under Mihail Kogalniceanu's leadership, secularizing the monastic fortunes and dissolves the Legislative Assembly.
In the same year, Cuza submitted a new constitution and a new electoral law to the people by plebiscite, aimed at providing Parliament with a wider basis, and decreed the rural law.