Which group proclaimed itself the National Assembly, signaling a shift toward popular sovereignty during the French Revolution?

• A. The Third Estate
• B. The First Estate
• C. The Second Estate
• D. The Fourth Estate

Answer: (A)

The idea being tested is that political authority begins with the people, not with a privileged group. In 1789, the Third Estate, which included the vast majority of French ordinary people—peasants, laborers, and the middle-class—refused to be sidelined by the old estate system. They declared themselves the National Assembly, signaling that sovereignty came from the nation as a whole rather than from a privileged class. By naming themselves the National Assembly, they asserted that the people, collectively, were the source of political legitimacy and could shape the nation’s laws and government. This shift toward popular sovereignty accompanied calls for constitutional limits on the king and more representative government. The other estates did not make the same move, and the idea of a Fourth Estate as a formal estate isn’t the factor here.