Justice and Whigs

Over the last several weeks, I read A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, as time and energy allowed. It offers a closely argued adaptation of the social contract theory, in opposition to the utilitarian ethics that had dominated English--or English-speaking--social thought since the days of Smith and Hume. There are pages that read as if something had been obscured in the revisions for the second edition; but the fault is likely in my reading. It will be a while before I return for a second reading, though, for A Theory of Justice takes up 500 pages before the index.

During some of this time, I found myself wanting to read, yet without the energy to concentrate on Rawls. One of the books I looked into was The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War by Michael F. Holt. This book runs to 950 pages before the notes, not quite 40 for every year of the party's existence, 1833 through 1856. It makes a curious contrast to A Theory of Justice, for while Rawls tells us how a constitutional democracy might arrive at just rules and execute them, Holt tells us how one such democracy operated: with a concern for power and patronage at least as strong as its concern for abstract (or any other) justice. One must keep track of Hunker Democrats, Barn Burner Democrats, Silver Gray Whigs, Native Americans (not the people who were here before Columbus), canal board and customs house patronage, and so on. It is not the easiest book to read through. It is not dense with argument and inference, rather it is crammed with facts, not always organized in proportion to their importance.