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In 1832 two-thirds rule was adopted by the Democratic convention to emphasize the support enjoyed by the incumbent President Andrew Jackson. However, in normal situations, the two-thirds rule makes it much more difficult when the min the required consensus around the candidate nominated. Often necessary to repeat voting. Despite the limitations of this method, the Democratic Party kept it for about a century, especially in the interest of the southern states. For many years the southern states formed the stronghold of the Democratic Party. The two-thirds rule to allow those states to keep a kind of veto on the candidate nominated by the party. Those states feared that the rule of an absolute majority, the candidate of the north and west would be able to easily marginalized. After the exceptions of 1836 and 1840, two-thirds rule was restored in the Democratic Convention 1844, due to activism by opponents of pro-democracy leader Martin van Buren. Van Buren had been vice president during Jackson's second term and President 1836 to 1840. In 1844 van Buren exceeded the consensus of the majority of delegates, but does not reach two-thirds. His opponents did everything they could to prevent him from getting the nomination, and they got it. After eight votes to void, James K. Polk was added to the list of candidates, and won the ninth vote. The two-thirds rule remained in force until the convention in 1936, when it was abolished with effect from the next convention.

Apart from the anti-Masonic, who in 1831 used the rule of three quarters, the other parties, particularly the Republican Party, adopted from now the rule of an absolute majority.

The first policy document was approved by the Democratic convention of 1840. Along about 1000 words, the document stated, among other things, that the Constitution be interpreted strictly, the powers of the federal government must be limited and should not interfere with states' rights, the government has to reduce costs and keep taxes to a minimum. Also criticized the abolitionist cause and feared the explosion of the problem of slavery. The Democratic convention of 1848 was the first to describe an National Committee, composed of one member from each State of the Union, which shall attend to the affairs of the party between conventions and the next. In general, the leadership of the Democratic party was made up of elected representatives in Congress, rather than the elected president.

Sometimes the party's warring factions against each other sent delegations to the national convention different from the same state and that each claimed to be legitimate. Just joined, the convention had to settle such disputes by establishing the legitimacy of the delegation sent states, their composition and representativeness. Other times, the states sent delegates most of the votes at their disposal, to give a seat to every important party leaders. The Democratic Convention of 1848 failed an attempt to reduce the number of delegates to the number of votes. In 1852 the number of delegates was doubled, but the number of votes can be expressed by each state remained unchanged, equal to the number of electors of the state. Was introduced as the fractional voting, so each delegate was entitled to a half of votes, rather than a full vote. The scheme of 1852 remained in force for two decades.

As mentioned, in 1844 Polk was elected and entered the ninth vote. Something similar was repeated in 1852, when Franklin Pierce was listed as a candidate to go blank after 34 votes and was elected to the 49th vote. Polk and Pierce were the first two dark horse in history. Both won the general election and become president. The term "dark horse" literally means "dark horse" in the sense of "mysterious stranger". In a novel by Benjamin Disraeli in 1831 is used to indicate unknown quality from a horse that wins a race. From 1844 was used in reference to Polk, also a candidate included in the list at the last moment, which won unexpectedly. These are often a compromise candidate, which is used to unblock a stalemate in the competition between the major contenders. The history of the candidates "dark horse" U.S. accounts for about a century. The Democratic convention of 1844 and in 1852 they were known precisely for the first deadlock in the voting for the candidate for the nomination, thanks to the two-thirds rule.