Chapter 4 analyses Hegel’s reasons for choosing the bicameral system at a time when it was anything but widespread and in fact hotly contested. It reconstructs the arguments advanced then, both in favour of a two-chamber system and in opposition to it, and argues that Hegel’s acceptance of bicameralism must be understood as taking a deliberate stance in the constitutional debate of post-Napoleonic Germany. Essentially, he advances two arguments for the institution of two chambers. First, the division of the Estates Assembly into two chambers will lead to improved decision-making and second, there will be less direct opposition between the Estates and the government. The contextualisation of these two arguments reveals that Hegel distils only the main arguments of one side in a heated controversy while excluding counter-arguments and ideas of alternative mechanisms in circulation at the time. In the process, this chapter especially explores arguments about the role and composition of the first chamber, which corresponds to what is nowadays conventionally called the second chamber and often dubbed a ‘house of review’. Important questions about the social implications of the bicameral system are also raised in this context.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to an analysis of the distribution of power within Hegel’s model of constitutional monarchy, or what he calls the rational constitution. By focussing on the arrangement of power in Hegel’s organic political system, it provides a necessary grounding for the analysis in the chapters that follow. First, Hegel’s peculiar separation of powers into a princely, governmental, and lawgiving power, which are all organically interconnected, is addressed, which is of particular interest on account of its variance with the concept of that name which is widely held today. Next, the role played by the monarch is scrutinised, who is hereditary, bound by the law, and embodies subjective freedom. This is followed by a discussion of the exercise of government, which exposes the ultimate restrictedness of the monarch’s field of influence. Lastly, the chapter recovers the various competences that Hegel envisioned for the Assembly of Estates, with which the two subsequent chapters are principally concerned.