No, no, that isn't the interesting part (well, it's interesting in a thriller sense, of course, people suffering and whatnot): the interesting part is that, as sympathetic as she is (until she goes BAD), she's portrayed as the human face of a necessary sacrifice. There wasn't a whole whomping lot Hamilton could have done other than have SOME tax SOMEWHERE; the government had to be funded (unless it were to "live like the chameleon, upon air," to quote an irritated Joseph Plumb Martin, referring to his seven years in the Continental Army without being paid EVER...oh, except once by a visiting French officer who, appalled at this treatment of the troops, dug some money out of his own pocket). And as for policing the frontier -- well, the yet-mostly-unfunded government simply lacked the ability to do so.
"The greater good" -- even when it is that, and not merely venal acquisitiveness (as seems to be the case in some of the financial...excitements...in Liss's other books) can be pretty hard to swallow when you personally are relegated to the "lesser losses."