The "Junimists" were soundly defeated in the subsequent elections of July 1876. Pogor managed to preserve his seat in the new legislature, which voted on Romanian independence during the War of '77. He was thus involved in parliamentary discussions about the thorny issue of antisemitic discrimination favored by the PNL: in early 1878, he was one of the few deputies who questioned the law preventing Romanian Jews from trading in distilled beverages. Alongside Carp, Gane, and Maiorescu, he enlisted as a member of the reserve militia (or Civic Guard) in Iași, thus serving alongside some members of the Free and Independent Faction.