Later he actively participated in the Expedition of the Thousand, joining the army of Giuseppe Garibaldi in Sicily. With a squad of selected soldiers he tried to conquer the fort of Reggio Calabria, but the failure of the operation led him to take refuge on the Silan plateau; he actively and successfully continued to promote the insurrectional activity in Calabria, giving his name to a company of volunteers organized by him. The crowning glory of his activism was his appointment, in 1861, as member of the first Italian Parliament, a position he held for almost twenty years (later he passed to the Senate), placing himself among the ranks of the Historical Left headed by Agostino Depretis and Francesco Crispi, and not failing to make a constructive contribution in favor of the poorest sections of the Italian population, even if the sector in which he was most committed was that of foreign policy.