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This article moves beyond a textual analysis to argue that the origins of this struggle can be found over two centuries earlier in the history of indentured servitude and slavery. The existence and dominance of indentured servitude as a means of immigration ensured that early immigration regulation operated with the assumption that people were articles of commerce. Before independence, this assumption went unquestioned. But as slavery, indentured servitude, and immigration intertwined between Independence and the end of the Civil War, this assumption - that persons entering from abroad were "articles of commerce"- became one for the most disputed questions of constitutional law.