Why did the authors of the Articles provide for a weak government?

The authors of the American Articles of Confederation created a weak federal government for ones man reason. The United States was born after trying to leave Great Britain for a long time. Many of the Founding Fathers saw the British government (their enemy at the time) as being overbearing upon people it had no business controlling. They didn't want to be seen like that, and so they gave as much power to the states as possible, making the federal government largely useless.