In 1867, King Wilhelm I, king of Prussia, promised his regime would pay special attention to the training of the district and provincial constitution in a speech from the throne. After multiple legislative proposals introduced by ministers and parliament members which didn't meet the approval of parliament, in the 1880s, the legislative body finally reorganized the general regional government authority throughout the monarchy.

"The contrast between the Hannoverian constitution of agencies and the administrative organization of the lowlands in Prussia couldn't have been greater", pronounced E. von Meier. Whereas in Hannover (until 1852) Justice and Administration in relatively small districts were consolidated by the department superintendent, in Prussia justice fell originally to the domain tenant, later the state judicial authority, and the administration only knew the institutions of the District constitution. In the Prussian assembly building, Georg v. Vincek compared both systems and questioned whether the Hannoverian constitution of agencies was an organization for a great European state.

In the meantime, the Prussian government respected the Hannoverian parliament members, as the newly gained territory was reorganized according to its needs directed towards a streamlined military and fiscal constitution, and Wilhelm I., König von Preussen decreed the enactment regarding the Constitution of Districts and Agencies in the province of Hannover on September 12, 1867. It maintained the powers of the administrative districts, but appointed as their supervisor an administrator, to whom auxiliary officers could be assigned. Districts were developed for further administrative purposes through the consolidation of administrative districts and independent cities, 36 in number, over whom for the time being was to preside a district captain. Military and fiscal affairs fell under his responsibility.

A new development however introduced the provision : each district constituted a district professions collective. It was to be endowed with the rights of a corporation, whose organ was the district professions, to which particular land owners and representatives of the cities and rural communities belonged. They convened under the chairmanship of the district captain in regional councils. The district budget, administration of institutions belonging to the district, justice, the levying of contributions to charitable objectives of the local inhabitants, as well as the appointment of public officials for the district.

A clear separation of responsabilities between the district and the agencies was lacking, even if the authority was given to the district councillors through a district bylaw to individually regulate the particular articles of their district charter. Nevertheless, the district corporations in the province of Hannover attained little significance, as the Prussian interior minister could still observe in 1881.

The register of the districts in the province of Hannover appended to the decree of 1867 named under number 34 the district of Lingen, which was to be made up of the Bentheim, Neuenhaus, Lingen and Lingen city departments. For the elections to the Prussian parliament, which occurred after the Prussian three-class franchise, this district formed one constituency. In contrast to the case of elections to the Northern German Federation (from 1871 for the Reichstag) for which the universal, direct and secret suffrage applied, the Grafschaft ranked third from among approximately 19 voting districts in the province of Hannover, which was comprised of Meppen, Aschendorf-Hümmling (excluding Papenburg), Lingen and Bentheim. Because this referendum concerned pure candidate centered elections, in 1867, it was possible for the Catholic and Guelph Ludwig Windthorst to be nominated during an assembly in Nordhorn, where more than an 80% share of the population was protestant; it was not a surprise that he also won the election, given the confessional structure in the rest of districts within the electoral district, in which the Catholics had the majority.

The apportionment of the districts while retaining the administrative districts proved inexpedient; the districts (Aemter) were too small for the envisaged tasks, the existing districts (Kreise)on the other hand were too large. A reform for the optimization of the administrative structure was still needed.

In the crisis that broke out in 1866 around the supremacy of Prussia or Austria in the German Federation, as Hannover refused to support Prussia's plans of reform and also afforded no consequence to an ultimatum, it was occupied by Prussian troops. In a proclamation from June 19, 1866, the commanding general V. Falckenstein ordered that "The administration of the kingdom from now on passes to me", and he commanded further from his headquarters in Hannover that "the administration in all sectors will carry on unchanged according to the Royal Hannoverian laws and regulations and all public officials will remain in their posts." At the end of July, the Prussian king appointed a governer-general of the Hannover Kingdom; but the hoped-for peace agreement failed to materialize. Instead, the former Hannoverian kingdom was, through a Prussian Annexation Patent of October 3, 1866, incorporated as a province in Prussian territory.

In the organization of the government administration, for the time being, no changes occurred, The governor-general only decreed on October 30, that the public authorities henceforth shall take on the Prussian Royal designation.

The period following the Revolutionary year 1848 brought a series of laws to the Kingdom of Hannover, in whose design noticeably liberal ideas left their mark. Yet in 1848 the law of the modification of the Land constitution recognized - here the influence of the newly appointed minister Stüve showed itself - all communities as statutory corporations and assigned to them particular self-governing duties, such as the management of their assets, the election of - to be approved by the authorities - community officers and the regulation of internal community affairs including the police. The legislation of 1852 emphasized this, in which it called for the management of the communities to their own competent administration of their affairs.

The bailiwicks as sub-districts were done away with, and the police duties placed henceforth with the Amt or with the communities. The town ordinances were enacted in 1851 pursuant to this political reform. for the historical cities of the Grafschaft It meant the loss of their designation as cities; they were crossed off the list of independent cities, and for them, in a new chapter of community autonomy, the Rural Community Ordnance entered into force.

Through the law over the constitution of the courts of 1850, the administration of justice was separated from the administration. The designation district court still brought to mind the former regulatory unity. After the bureaucratic reorganization of 1852 the entire public administration of the lower courts in their district fell to the Amtern, insofar as it was not transferred to other authorities. In the jurisdiction of the Amter fell in addition to the hitherto sphere of authority also sovereignty matters, military and fiscal matters; the independent control for the ongoing commercial operations was emphasized through a compulsion and penal power, with which their directives were reinforced.

The law, also passed in 1852, over the Amtsvertretung positioned near the as yet bureaucratic structure of the Amt as administrative authority the indirectly elected representation in the form of the Amts assembly and enabled thereby the beginnings of the development of a municipal association, even if a decree of the Hannoverian Interior Ministry clarified, that the Amts district represented no regional authority.

With the establishment of 31 new Amtern the Hannoverian Kingdom counted nearly 45 independent cities, 175 Amter, of which Neuenhaus, with 18500 people was the largest Amt. The revised Amt order of 1859 reduced the number of Amter to 102, so that the average number of inhabitants of an administrative district amounted to 16000 people; the Bentheim Amt still comprised in 1880 according to the census only 10476 inhabitants, the Neuenhaus Amt in contrast 20520 people.

That the circumstances regarding the territorial sovereignty of the Princes of Bentheim and Steinfurt, pursuant to federal acts and in accordance with laws decreed in other states were to be controlled was reflected in the royal decree of April 18, 1823. Subsequently, the Princes in Graftschaft Bentheim would be granted a Standesherrschaft with precisely defined (subordinate) governing rights, which included important police powers, the control over municipal, religious, and educational services, as well as forest and border police jurisdiction. Their station was turned into that of a noble senior civil servant. The function of the royal administration in Bentheim ended, a royal commissioner's office was established in Benthieim in its place to carry out rights reserved to the state, over which the Landdrostei Osnabrück was in charge.

Only with the settlement of the lordly rights was Hannover free to insert Bentheim into an administrative organization already well established in other lands. In addition, the king decreed on May 20, 1824 the edict over the Administrative and Legal Constitution in Bentheim county, which, because it was too large for a single district, was divided according to the recommendation of the Prince into the two princely Bentheim Mediat-Aemter Bentheim and Neuenhaus. For each district a baillif and a district assessor were appointed. All parishes in the upper county (with the exception of Nordhorn), the city of Schüttorf and the Bentheim Flecken belonged to the Bentheim district, while the parishes of the lower county, the city of Neuenhaus as well as the parish of Nordhorn and the Wietmarschen community were added to the Neuenhas district. Within the districts the parish communities were merged into bailiwicks after the abolition of the Cantonal unions dating back to the French period. In each of the three cities of Schüttorf, Nordhorn and Neuenhaus and in the Bentheim Flecken should be a magistrate responsibile for local administration, the villages and flat lands fell to the bailifs. The activities of the Bentheim districts were matched to the king's, in other words, they had the same judicial and administrative duties, namely the administration of justice as well as the sovereign and police administration of first recourse. The smaller Bentheim district was at the same time the criminal investigation bureau for the county. A lordly Bentheim Justice Chancellery for Bentheim county with a chancellor, two assessors with voting power and a secretary corresponding to the will of the Princes was set up as the appellate court.

The edict over the new organization came into effect on September 1, 1824. On this day, the royal commissioner Duncker, in the presence of princely court counselor Bornemann conducted the installation of the two Mediatämter and the lordly chancellery.