There is a blatant contradiction within Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. In the section on abstract right, property is heralded as the only rational and valid form of possession. However, in the section on legislative power, the upper chamber is made solely of Majoratsherren, that is, eldest sons of the landed aristocracy, who inherit a feudal kind of possession, which violates all the presuppositions of abstract and family rights. I firstly show how this contradiction undergoes a diachronic development starting with the printing of the Philosophy of Right. In the lectures on the Philosophy of Right from 1824 to 1825, Hegel expresses significantly more criticism and doubt about the composition of the upper chamber than in the printed text. The second step of this development is found in Hegel’s text on the English Reform Bill of 1831. Here, frightened by the July Revolution of the previous year, in complete opposition with the position of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel goes as far as to provide practical suggestions on how the primogeniture system and the feudal organisation of land should be dismantled.