Ordinarily, the cause is shrouded in the group terminology 'Americans', as though all Americans equally wanted to fight the war. However, from some reading, it seems to be true that there were leaders in America who wanted it to happen more than anyone else. These are generally grouped as the founding fathers (although there isn't a 1:1 map, since likely not all of them were interested in personally participating in politics and government).
Then, you surely had a lot of people who thought it would save them money and grant them freedoms, so they were willing to fight too. I don't think these people alone would have ever fought the rebellion though. Or maybe they would have tried something small but quickly given up (much like we saw with Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion).
You also had British loyalists, who are generally glossed over in American history books as dumbasses and/or traitors (or perhaps a few wealthy merchants who liked the status quo).
How accurate is what I've said so far?
Now, concerning the actual leaders of the rebellion, what was in it for them? Would you say they saw the colonial scheme, and they wanted to be the leaders of it themselves? They wanted to not pay taxes to Britain, not out of fairness, but out of greed? And from the very beginning, they wanted to protect American business with the military and expand outward (westward) as much as possible?
I'm not trying to steer the discussion in one direction; I'm just trying to lay out my understanding of the situation, and any part of it can be corrected or expanded upon. And I think that understanding is necessary to also understand what I actually mean by the question in the title.
It seems you have a pretty good understanding of the basics of some of the motivations. I'm not sure that the portrayal of Loyalists as traitors is what is in textbooks, and I would disagree with that statement, but I can see where you are coming from.
The Founding Fathers came from many diverse walks of life across a large geographic area. They all had their own reasons for eventually rising up with different ideas of what the end results would look like. One of the things that should not be just put to the side like an added bonus was those freedoms granted, mainly the freedom of self-determination. There was a large amount of resentment towards the British for how they ruled. The call of "No taxation without representation" had merit to them as citizens of Britain. They had no presence in Parliament but were expected to abide by whatever was decided across the Atlantic. Fighting and dying in the French and Indian war resulted in being prohibited from moving into these new territories and new taxes and they had no say in the matter. The promise of virtual representation rang hollow to many. As citizens across the ocean, they would have a representative in Parliament who could both voice and vote for them but, by nature of geography, they somehow lost these rights. Taxation is just one example. The harshness of the Coercive Acts pushed people who were neutral or on the edge towards the patriot cause. They had lost something that was given to them by birth and it was up to them to take it back.
Now some wanted what they would have voted for, like westward expansion or , more than the legal right itself but self-determination was a powerful motivator in the American Revolution, especially when it became clear that the issues could not be peacefully resolved.
You may be interested in The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn and I would recommend Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World by Maya Jasanoff to have a broader view of the Loyalist experience.
I hope this helps.
