Extracted from Pro PHP and jQuery:
■ Tip: The values returned are CSS shorthand properties. Another advantage of using jQuery is the ability to set CSS properties with shorthand notation, which cannot be done with basic JavaScript.
Referenced in jQuery API Reference:
Certain shorthand CSS properties (such as margin, background, border) are not compatible. For instance, if you wish to retrieve the rendered margin value, you should use $(elem).css('marginTop') and $(elem).css('marginRight'), and so forth.
I find it puzzling that setting CSS shorthand is possible but reading it isn't. I will resort to utilizing a stylesheet, however, the question still remains for academic purposes.