First, Emerson and Thoreau came much later than the American Revolution.
Thomas Jefferson wrote much on creating a Republic, and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers also helped shape opinion on it. But there were two other writers from Britain who were hugely influential on the Revolution, and those were John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who wrote a column in British papers called "Cato's Letters, or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious and other Important Subjects." Their Whig stance was that people should have direct influence on their goverment and live under liberty.
You can find the writings of early American revolutionaries on the two links below.
Basically, the writers helped shaped the Revolution and the Constitution Convention by sharing ideals of liberty and republicanism with Colonists. There were two main philosophies: strong central goverment or a weaker central government. Interestingly, the modern Republican and Democratic parties can trace their heritage to Jefferson's and Hamilton's views on this.
Don't know quite what you mean about "American Dream," but it was Jefferson who rewrote John Locke's key phrase of "pursuit of life, liberty and property" into "life, liberty and happiness." And that's the phrase that most people associate with the "American Dream."
Your list of writers did not have any African American writers, but what about some of the literature by African Americans, such as Langston Hughes (poem: "A Dream Deferred"); Maya Angelou ("I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"); and Toni Morrison? Even W.E.B. DuBois or Martin Luther King, Jr.
Who could be more revolutionary than Walt Whitman? "Leaves of Grass"
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