1866 hore the
full and just recognition of John Hoss' name as principal chief of the Cherokee
nation."
The summing up of the [panegyric is a splendid tribute to a splendid maul I:
" Blessed with a line constitution and a vigorous niind, John Koss had the physi-
cal ability to follow the path of duty wherever it led. No danger appalled him.
He never faltered in Supporting what he believed to he right, hut clung to it with a
steadiness of purpose which alone could have sprung from the clearest convictions
of rectitude. He never sacrificed the- interests of his nation to expediency, lie
never lost sight of the welfare of the people. For them he labored daily for a long
life, and upon them he bestowed his last expressed thoughts. A friend of law, he
obeyed it:a friend of education, he faithfully encouraged schools throughout the
country, and spent liberally his means in conferring it upon others. Given to hos-
pitality, none ever hungered around his door. A professor of the Christian religion,
he practiced its precepts. His works are inseparable from the history of the Cher-
okee people for nearly half a century, while his example in the daily walks of life
will linger in the future and whisper words of hope, temperance, and charity in the
years i if posterity."
Resolutions were also passed for bringing his body from Washington at the expense
of the Cherokee Nation and providing for suitable obsequies, in order "that his
remains should rest among those he so long served" (Resolutions in honor of John
Ross, in Laws of the Cherokee Nation, 1869).
(47) The Ketoowah Society (p.