Many of the proprietors of the library were chief justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, including Theophilus Parsons, Lemuel Shaw, Horace Gray, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The library was also caught up in the debates between the Federalists, who wanted to see the common law (based on English law) received into the newly formed United States, and the Jeffersonians, who preferred to have a civil law-based system similar to the Napoleonic Code. The Federalists, who were prominent in Boston and integral to the library's founding, began importing English law books for local lawyers to use.
This situation led to involvement from several prominent Supreme Judicial Court justices, including Theophilus Parsons, Lemuel Shaw, Horace Gray, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The library became a central point of contention between Federalists and Jeffersonians over whether to adopt English common law versus a civil law system modeled after the Napoleonic Code. As a result, Federalists, who dominated Boston and played a key role in founding the library, began importing English law texts for local lawyers.