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The battle of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts provided an impulsion to assemble this time the delegates of all 13 colonies at the State House in Philadelphia. The second continental congress was lead by John Hancock who included the same delegates as the past continental congress but this time including Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, John Hancock from Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. All the colonies sent their representatives. This gathering of patriots involved John Adams, Samuel Adams and Richard Henry the leading lights of the revolutionary generation. The Congress included sixty-five delegates. At the Congress, they decided to completely break away from Great Britain. On May 15, 1776 they were determined to put the colonies in position of defense. They also agreed to organize the militia of the colonies better. After forming the army they called it the American Continental Army and on June 14, they officially appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of the army who chose to serve the army without pay. As he knew hi army would face great trouble he wrote that Americans were "not then organized as a nation, or known as a people upon the earth. We had no preparation. Money, the nerve of war, was wanting."  Aware of this, they were afraid to face such a grand empire as Great Britain.
But to pay the militia and its supplies they authorize printing of money and appointed to accomplish relations with foreign governments with the purpose of finding allies to fight the British.
Yet, in May of 1775 the majority of delegates were not trying to find independence from Britain and still be part of England with their requirements, except for radicals like John Adams. On July of that same year the Congress approved the Olive Branch Petition directly appointed to the king where they demanded King George III a peaceful resolve to the difficulties that the colonies had with Britain. The king rejected the petition and instead sent more troops to Boston and declared Britain in a state of rebellion in August.
As time passed the feeling and wish for independence grew stronger. Men in Philadelphia were now hunted for disloyalty. This led to the summer of 1776 when the formal declaration of independence was brought making the meeting of the second Continental Congress one of the most important government meetings in the history of the United States of America, since it decided some of the most important ideas that the colonists fought for in the Revolutionary War in the declaration of Independence wrote by Thomas Jefferson.
At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock wrote his name first and biggest on the declaration. He said, "The British ministry can read that name without spectacles; let them double their reward." The reward he refers to is the one offered by King George III that was to be given to anyone who could capture one of the Sons of Liberty, especially Samuel Adams and John Hancock.