Charles Blakey Blackmar graduated from Southwest High School in Kansas City, Missouri.
He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1942, where he was a politics major, won the John G. Buchanan Prize, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of Gateway Club.
After graduating from Princeton, Blackmar enlisted in the Army, and served for four years in the European Theatre during World War II.
While a professor, Blackmar served as special assistant attorney general of Missouri and wrote books and articles.
Blackmar argued that decisions on medical treatment for incompetent family members are properly left where they historically have been made, to the family without interference from the state,[4] and that "the very existence of capital punishment demonstrates a relativity of values by establishing the proposition that some lives are not worth preserving.