Following the 1907 election, Romania had been under a PNL administration, with Ion I. C. Brătianu as Prime Minister. The cabinet had been formed shortly after the large-scale peasants' revolt, and saw the Conservatives and the National Liberals entangled in a debate about land reform. Carp, as the PC doctrinaire, was against giving land and voting rights to the peasants, and favored tax cut for activities of self-improvement. The negotiations, also involving landowner advocate Ioan Lahovary on the Conservative side, stalled. Under Carp, the Conservatives blocked out their democratizing wing, by expelling Take Ionescu from the party in January 1908. This clash led to the creation of the PCD, as Ionescu's own party. The new group rose rapidly on the political scene, earning pledges from an intellectual and political class that included Alexandru and Nicolae Xenopol, Ion Luca Caragiale, Ovid Densusianu, and Constantin Rădulescu-Motru.