 According to one newspaper in Montgomery, slavery was a benevolent "religious institution" allowing care of slaves who might perish in other regions.Upon declaring its secession from the United States, Alabama adopted a new state constitution.In it, it forbade the emancipation of slaves by the state itself, or by "any other country", such as the United States of America, which Alabama viewed itself as having left, but also the power to oppose the "African Slave Trade"