The Democrats claimed descent, of course, from the Jeffersonian Republicans. The Democrats were the party of the poor, the Whigs the party of property. From a liberal perspective it is hard today tell a Democrat from a Republican. There are still true democrats around, but most of them have become as illiberal and self serving as those of the Republican Party. The confusion of the true nature of what the word liberal means has clouded the distinction between the two.
Social justice seems to be lacking in both only to be found in the third parties.