Did Lincoln need a college degree?
I don’t even know if Washington and Jefferson had one.
No, Lincoln didn’t have a college degree. He attended an ABC school and that for a short time. He was basically an autodidact, self-taught, but he did read law. I believe his primary schooling were The King James Bible (1611) and William Shakespeare (First Folio 1623), both, in the words of Harold Bloom the sublime summit of literature in English. I also just read that he carried a copy of Macbeth in his pocket the last few days of his life. It’s also interesting to note that H. L. Mencken, who never even attended college, wrote possibly the best English prose ever written. Or any Brit for that matter. Having a college degree is probably a part of the unwritten constitution; that is, its become customary. Personally, I think academics in general are the biggest fools around. Obama’s speeches, despite his Harvard degree (or because of it?) are not only baby talk but inspired baby talk, a hodgepodge of the most banal and trite clichés ever spoken by an American President. He and Clinton never wrote or spoke a word that rose above the level of a high school journalism student.