How do I get the plane to just stabilize

I have an APM 2.8 ardupilot board. I can get it to route flight commands from the receiver through the flight controller and on to the servos/esc. All I really want is for it to help stabilize. What I mean is that if the gyro senses rotations that were not given by the user, that it should try to counter-act those rotations automatically. Under initial setup->flight modes->current mode, I got it to say “STABILIZE” but when I unplug it and test it out, it does nothing. As in I rotate the plane with my hands, but I get no automatic correction. What am I missing?

Try to use FBWA fligh mode

http://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/fbwa-mode.html

The setting that I am looking for is one where the servos try to do what I am telling them, but also if there are sudden gusts that cause the airplane to rotate, that those are counter-balanced automatically.