The efforts of the Revolutionary War left our country surviving as individual states holding the most power and bitter rivals for land,economics and such. It also left us with no way to back the continentals (what the money was called) with any substance. In other words continentals were basically not worth much. We also did not have a navy to protect our trade with the West Indies or other British ports and since we owed Spain and could not pay it Spain closed off our waterway - the Mississippi River.
This being done we attempted to come up with a federal government who's power was extremely limited. The federalist regrouped, sat down and created our Constitution- getting rid of the bad parts of the Articles and creating a stronger government. One which has become a leader for other countries.
Hope this helps. Sorry for it being so long- but I'm a substitute teacher which specializes in social studies from 6th to 12th grade.