Eugene Gauss - 1865-03-08

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Envelope:  Mr Chs. Henry Gauss, 
Box No 1548, 
Yale College, 
New Haven Connecticut

St. Charles Mo Feby 3. 65

My dear son
                    I write this letter for the purpose of saying a few words to you about your plans for the future.
I judge from your last letter to me, that you would prefer to Continue your studies for an other year.  As I have told you before, I am perfectly willing for you to do so, provided, that I am able to furnish you the means of doing so, and I hope, that this will be the case.  Your suggestion however, that you might do this in St. Louis, is altogether impracticable.   The State Convention and legislature, are trying their best, to make such changes in the Constitution and laws of our State that, according to my views it will not be a proper place to raise my family in.  By a very complicated test-oath they have disfranchised a large majority of our citizens.  they are trying to drive of [sic] a number of our best ministers, (by forbidding them to perfom the marriage ceremony, and some person  member has even expressed a desire to forbid them to preach) they are trying to give the governor unlimited power, to levy assessments on Rebels (i.e. anti-Abolitionists) and are finally moving heaven and earth to give the nego political and social equality with the whites.  They also are passing a very stringent militia law, to which you would be subject, if you should stay next winter in the State.  I am determined to leave the state as soon as I can sell my property, and if I cannot sell it at one price, I shall do so at another, for leave here I will.  I I do not succeed in selling it in the course of next summer and fall, I shall sell it at public sale the next winter or spring.  Where I shall go to, I do not know at present. I intend to invest all my means in some good stocks, and live as economically as I can, in some decent neighborhood, until things are so far settled, that I can form some plans for the future.
Your mother is as anxious to leave the state, as I am, and perhaps even more so.---
        Our house is still unrepaired.  This will of course prevent me from selling it, for some time to come, but I hope that the weather will soon change sufficiently, to allow the work men to go at it.

Goodbye my dear son
Yr affectionate father
Eugene Gauss