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I happened to run across this interesting piece of commentary.

In the first seventy-five years of our independence, many Americans – lawyers included – attacked the common law and advocated strongly for codification of all American law, in part, for the better security of citizens from arbitrary rule by judges. The common law was denounced as a barbaric, feudalistic relic of medieval England that imposed ex post facto, retroactive law on parties whenever judges found a new tort or new common law crime.50 Jefferson wrote in a private letter in 1788 that courts in America should be forbidden to cite any English decision since the accession of Lord Mansfield to the bench (in 1756),51 and in a private letter in 1812 that it was improper to quote in American courts any English authorities later than the accession of George III (in 1760).52 During the early codification movement three states – New Jersey in 1799,53 Kentucky in 1808,54 and Pennsylvania in 1810, 55 passed statutes specifically forbidding citation of English cases decided after July 4, 1776. The statutes did not last long in force, and there is some evidence that they were not enforced.56 In New Hampshire, a rule of court was adopted forbidding English citations.57
But all of this was Anglophobia, not xenophobia. Proponents of American codification pointed with admiration and envy to the success of France’s Code Napoléon, parts of which were translated almost immediately in America’s first law journal, and other codes of law.58 Pennsylvania’s statute expressly approved the citation of post-1776 British precedent about the law of nations.

Kinda gives a little more background on this.

Pennsylvania Legislature Act of March 19, 1810

§ 1503. Applicability of colonial law.
(a) English law.--The common law and such of the statutes of England as were in force in the Province of Pennsylvania on May 14, 1776 and which were properly adapted to the circumstances of the inhabitants of this Commonwealth shall be deemed to have been in force in this Commonwealth from and after February 10, 1777.
(b) Provincial statutes.--The statutes enacted on or before May 14, 1776 under the authority of the late Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania have the same validity and effect as statutes enacted under the authority of this Commonwealth.
(c) Exceptions.--The rules specified in subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not be applicable to any statute or law which:
(1) has been heretofore or is hereafter amended or repealed or which has expired by its own limitation;
(2) orders the taking or subscribing any oath, affirmation or declaration of allegiance or fidelity to the British crown;
(3) acknowledges any authority in the heirs or devisees of William Penn, Esq., deceased, the former Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, or any other person whomsoever as Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania; or
(4) is repugnant to the Constitution of this Commonwealth or of the United States.

Sort of ties it together neatly.