Maybe it would work better with a different approach--the Spartacus-type revolt takes place *after* the South wins the Civil War.
After Confederate independence is accepted; Lincoln resigns and Hamlin takes over, the Secret Service and Pinkerton's Detective Agency are merged into the Interior Department, which still oversees the National Parks in later decades, but also has things like the CIA and FBI.
Pinkerton's has Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and other blacks trained to foment rebellions. Other white agents spread propaganda and dissent among the Confederate states. They are hoping to trigger Spartacus-type rebellions, but end up starting secessionist movements in the South.
Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass are sent to Florida to start a Spartacus-type revolt, and some time around this, Florida secedes. The two then get married and become the first president and vice-president of the black government of Florida. The white government of Florida tries to arrest them, but Union forces threaten to blockade its ports, and the Confederacy isn't ready for another all-out war.
A similar Spartacus-type revolt takes place in Louisiana, supported by Pinkerton's, and Louisiana secedes and it gets a black legislature with less opposition than in Florida. Blacks were much better off in Louisiana, and Pinkerton's efforts were more successful.
With the help of Pinkerton's, Blacks also agitate in Texas, which secedes and the US offers it Oklahoma and Kansas in exchange for economic, military and political cooperation.
The Confederacy wants to invade Cuba, but the US and Spain conspire to prevent it. (And Florida wanted extra priveleges from the Confederate government; this is partly why it seceded.)
William Randolph Hearst tries to have a ship in Havana Harbor blown up to foment war and sell newspapers but Confederates catch wind of the plot and expose it. This only makes further resentment against the Confederacy, the North sends warships down there and the war is on, much to Hearst's pleasure. The US and Spain win, and Cuba gets independence.
In popular culture southerners start being portrayed as smooth-talking tricksters telling both truth and lies at the same time.
The Confederacy is considerably weaker, and N. America is dominated by the US. Seeing how badly things have gone for the South, Russia gives more rights to the serfs. The butterfly effect causes different heirs to be born to the Romanovs, and czar Basil ascends the throne in 1904. He is accomodating, and is willing to allow Socialists to be in the Russian Duma.
Russia never sold Alaska; Basil's brother Boris is sent off to be governor of Alaska, which Russia never sold; the Gold Rush started in 1885, and many serfs were sent there to work, and many of them became a little better off, so the agitation which led to the Revolution wasn't so severe.
Lenin is more troublesome than most, and he is arrested and exiled, and begins publishing newspapers and magazines; Hugo Gernsback publishes some of his stories and articles in a magazine of futuristic speculation in technology and society. Lenin never read anything but his own stuff, so he didn't realize his work was being published in a scientifiction magazine. His work was also published elsewhere, but people tended to not take his ideas very seriously. Trotsky was more influential in Eastern European politics, but didn't start any revolutions. Stalin's parents had several sons who were troublemakers but who didn't do anything worse than rob a bank. Hitler's parents had only daughters, and they all married doctors. Rasputin's parents had one son, who emigrated to Italy to study anthropology.
Austria-Hungary, disgusted with Balkan agitation and worried about what happened to the US and the Confederacy when they fought a civil war, gives the Balkans independence as a single unit, knowing full well they'd never cooperate. Separately, they might have constituted several separate threats. But as a single "united" nation, they'd never be able to pose a significant threat to anybody but themselves. They wouldn't even be able to agree on how to divide up their disunited country. Other provinces of the empire are given expanded rights and more representation in Parliament. Prussia is a more centralized constitutional monarchy. Rights are expanded, not quite so much as in Austria-Hungary, but Jews and others are allowed/encouraged to emigrate. Large Jewish communities are established in many places around the world.
H.G. Wells becomes Prime Minister of Britain and organizes the League of Nations. Winston Churchill becomes a newspaper columnist and editorial writer, and publishes several books, including a well-known political science textbook.
Kemal Ataturk didn't get born; his parents have a different son who becomes a restaurateur. A different person enters politics, and is not quite so hostile to the Ottomans; he becomes Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1920; Sultan in name only, he institutes drastic reforms and drags the Empire into the 20 th century. His successors divide the titles of Sultan and Caliph, with strict rules dividing their powers and responsibilities, and rules on how to settle disagreements between the two. The rules only apply within the empire, but Moslems outside the empire tend to go along with it.
In 1925, an ex-patriate British soldier marries a sheikh in Oman, unites the Arabian Peninsula and founds the modern Arabian kingdom. He doesn't get to be king, but he and his descendants have a lot of influence. The Kingdom of Arabia cooperates with the British and other Western powers, and is a rival to the Ottomans.
In 1930, there is no Great Depression; Argentina is still the most prosperous country in S. America. The Florida peninsula has been divided straight down the middle into two nations, East Florida and West Florida, but they're still fighting over whether blacks get the east half or the west half, and which half should Indians, Asians and others go to? The whites want the income and technical skills those groups can offer, but don't want non-whites as citizens or landowners.
Louisiana is like Monaco, a prosperous tourist trap for the wealthy. Texas would be more prosperous if they wouldn't keep fighting with the blacks and Indians.
The CSA ended up encouraging almost all the blacks to leave, so they wouldn't have to buy up the slaves and pay off the former slaveowners. Slavery is still on the books, but few people actually have slaves any more. The plantations have been divided up into tiny, barely self-sufficient farms, and they're too proud to accept much foreign aid.
With all the worries about the South, the US never bothered to annex Hawaii, which has remained independent, and Japan is being militaristic. China and SE Asia are all divided up into little warring countries each with their own variant of monarchy, fascism, communism, socialism, etc. So Japan found it easy to take them over by 1935, and now it has its sights set on Hawaii, and maybe Alaska. They also want Easter Island, just for completeness; the Japanese want all of the Pacific. This is too close for the US and Canada, and the British are worried about Australia; the British Empire is still strong and prosperous, and is waiting for an excuse to declare war on Japan. The Japanese don't feel like trying to invade Siberia, but they do want the oil, so they make good trade deals with the Russians, who need the money.
The Confederacy sees this as an opportunity to get some employment and income, to stimulate their economy, so they send delegations to both Japan and the US, promising support and cooperation in any war. The Confederacy wants to side with whoever offers the better deal.
Japan offers the better deal, but the Confederacy should have known better; the Pinkerton agents find out who they're preparing to fight, and when the war breaks out in 1940, the US is prepared and blockades all the Confederate ports.
Floridians are a little grateful, hoping the US will impose a peace they couldn't come up with themselves. But the US was too busy worrying about Japan, and didn't have anything to do with Florida, Texas or Louisiana; all 3 of those countries stayed out of the war.
There isn't any massive Pearl Harbor type attack, and the Great Pacific War lasts from 1940-1944. The British hold onto Australia and New Zealand, Japan keeps China and SE Asia but isn't allowed to expand any further. Other Pacific islands get independence and good trade relations with anybody in the world they want. Russia officially stayed out of the war but still had to pay penalties for siding with Japan.
A rocket scientist recommends jet planes, zeppelin observation platforms and spy satellites to keep an eye on the Confederacy, Japan and anybody else which might be giving trouble. So the US starts working on those.
Japan also starts an aerospace industry.
In 1980, the main powers are the US, Britain and Japan. Singapore is the site of a major space launching facility run by the Japanese. Other sites are Bikini Atoll, (US); Easter Island (Britain); and Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, run by a consortium of Jews and Arab oil sheikhs.
Ironically the Confederacy isn't that bad off now. Immediately after the Japanese War, there was a lot of hostility and resentment, but after that cooled off, massive foreign aid poured in, in exchange for many concessions. The aid helped small farms to become self-sufficient, and many small industries supply needs for the local populace. The government is very weak, and the army consists of local police forces.
East Florida (blacks and Indians) and West Florida (whites) are finally at peace, both rivals for the tourist dollar.
How the boundary line ran through the Everglades was decided by a famous boxing match held on July 11, 1971, televised worldwide, on pay-per-view, refereed by a famous US boxing promoter. This was effectively the end of the fighting, and the two countries get along well now.
After years of agitation over who should be allowed to vote in Texas, the President of Texas, Teejay "Ribeye" Elbone Hagstrom finally said in frustration, "Let ‘em all vote and see what that gets ‘em!" So, though only citizens can vote, there are no age restrictions on citizenship or the right to vote. Small children can vote, if they're capable of filling out a ballot correctly. There are no restrictions based on land ownership, wealth, marital status, residency, health status or group membership. And there are no racial restrictions either. But local communities always come up with other imaginative restrictions, which blacks and Indians are always looking for ways to get around. It's all a game, which all Texans are good at.
Japan is the tyrannical menace to the East, not expanding in any obvious way, but spreading its tentacles all over the world. Its economy and society are more efficient than OTL Soviet Union, and women aren't that badly treated–as long as they obey every single little rule. Racism doesn't seem as obvious, since common Japanese citizens are treated as badly as foreigners are. Of course, people with money get treated better.
Russia didn't exactly have a revolution or civil war, but there was so much constant internal dissent and economic difficulty–a combination of bad luck and incompetent officials, they didn't fight in the Japanese War; Its economy started to pick up around 1970.
Britain leases Antarctica to scientists and businessmen hoping to do research and/or make some money off it.
The International Space Station is a thriving venture, serving as a hotel and also a platform for spying on the nations of the world. Japanese, Confederate, US and other spies and businessmen gather as a neutral meeting ground. Ordinary tourists are welcome, and strictly left alone by the spies.
Africa and S. America are pretty much the same as OTL, except for Argentina being better off.
