Thanks for your explanation. I don’t disagree with most of it.
I would think it is at least as likely that Weary was just told to go along. In any case, he had no legal or practical right to make hiw own decision either way, so could be definition not be a real volunteer.
A lot of free white boys were probably just told to go along, also.
And using NS's logic concerning the Confederacy, since slavery was ruled illegal in the South after the war, then Weary never was slave.
(NS claims the South never seceded and the Confederacy never existed because a SCOTUS decision in 1869 ruled that secession was illegal. It's easy to understand why he's in a mental institute.)