Eternity alone can reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to the peerless and immortal name of Washington.

Garfield’s sentence is a piece of civic veneration: it argues that George Washington’s true value to the United States cannot be fully measured within any single generation. By invoking “eternity,” Garfield frames Washington’s legacy as something that grows clearer with time, as later Americans continue to benefit from the precedents Washington set—constitutional restraint, republican leadership, and national unity. The phrase “debt of gratitude” casts Washington’s influence as an ongoing obligation rather than a completed tribute, while “peerless and immortal name” suggests that Washington functions as a symbolic standard for public virtue. The quote thus participates in the 19th‑century tradition of Washington as an almost sacral national figure.