Charles Daniel Drake (11 April 1811-1 April 1892) was a Republican US Senator from Missouri from 4 March 1867 to 19 December 1870, succeeding Benjamin Gratz Brown and preceding Daniel T. Jewett.
Biography[]
Charles Daniel Drake was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1811, and he served as a US Navy midshipman from 1827 to 1830 before becoming a lawyer in 1833. He moved to St. Louis in 1834, to Cincinnati in 1847, and back to St. Louis in 1849, and he served in the State House from 1859 to 1860. During the American Civil War, Drake became a fierce opponent of slavery and a Radical Republican, and, by 1863, he called for immediate emancipation, a new constitution, and the systematic disenfranchisement of all Confederate sympathizers in Missouri. From 1865 to 1871, the Radicals dominated the state under Drake's leadership, and he secured the franchise for all African-American men in Missouri, angering many Republicans. He went on to serve in the US Senate from 1867 to 1870 and then as Chief Justice of the Court of Claims from 1870 to 1885, and he died in 1892.